South
by princesswingnut
Summary: At Bella's birthday party in "New Moon", Jasper tries to kill her when she cuts herself, and succeeds. The aftermath, as her death tears Edward, Jasper, and the entire Cullen family apart. JASPER FIC. Compass Points series.
1. Chapter 1

The thing is, I am just really good at killing people.

I can feel the way they all blame themselves, the way their eyes are when they look at me. Like, _I know I could have done something to stop this. _They're all thinking it silently but in unison, _I should have seen it. I should have stopped it. _

They couldn't have stopped it. Even if they had seen it coming they couldn't have stopped me. You have to understand, I'm not saying this with any pride, it didn't exactly help things in this case. It's just dry fact—that I am the best of them when it comes to this. Edward is the best at playing the piano, Emmett is the best at catching fly balls. I am the best at killing people. And so when I went for Bella Swan on her birthday, I killed her. They could not stop me.

Of course they shouldn't have had to. We are supposed to be civilized now, tame. People and not animals—we are supposed to be able to control ourselves. And we can. Everyone can but me.

But then, they've always known that, too. When we pass a warm body I'm the first person they look to, the careful safety net of _everyone make sure Jasper's okay. _I've always been the high-water mark. They never quite got the scope of it, though, _exactly _how bad it was for me, not even Alice, not even Edward in my head. I surrounded myself with them like a wall, like a moat, and I studied them to figure out what the secret could be. They were all fine, always in control. If they could do it, I could do it. I was not special. I was not weak. I could do this.

Except I couldn't. Who was I kidding, I was weak. So when Bella cut her finger at her birthday party and held it up to see the blood beading on the surface of her skin, I was there before she ever saw it. Instead she saw me, slamming into her and barreling her backwards, my teeth in her throat. Edward would have stopped it but he couldn't, would have sold whatever was left of his soul to stop it, but this was the one night he wasn't standing close enough. I tackled her and the wall behind us was not strong enough to stop us—we punched straight through it, half window half wall with glass hailstorming down with us as we hit the ground. I rolled when I hit, her body tucked safely within my roll, she was my _prey, _I kept her blood safe. And I bent to her neck like a lover and drank it from her.

Even with regret slagging the memory, it's difficult to deny how sweet the taste of her blood was on the back of my tongue. Like being an alcoholic for twenty years and then someone hands you a shot of vodka. And you drink it. And it _burns _you as you drink it, there's the part of it of you still saying _twenty years, _counting the days you've been clean, but it's nothing compared to the way it feels to give in to what you know you've always been. When my mouth was on her throat, I can tell you there was no feeling of regret.

The regret came later. It came when I felt something slam into my back, knock me sliding, yards away with my heels digging skidmarks in the ground. I was still an animal, red-sighted bloodlust and instinct to keep drinking, and I landed in a crouch with a snarl ripping from me. Who had taken me from my prey, I would _kill _him, who did he think he was? And of course he was Edward.

The first coherent thought I remember having was something along the lines of _Oh God, what have I done? _Because I couldn't look at his face and not know, just a little bit—the brimstone pain and fury blazing in it—looking at his face and _knowing_, even in the state I was in, that I'd taken his world between my palms and crushed it to dust.

But there was still blood in the air, and I was a shark—my body screamed for it. I snarled again, louder, letting this intruder know that she was _mine_, that I was coming for her. He looked up from checking her pulse—I could have told him not to bother, she'd gone through a _wall, _her blood was cooling fast—and he snarled back, a ribcage savanna cat sound. Because of course she had never been mine, even when I killed her. Even when she was dead she was his.

I thought I would be the one to attack first, but he beat me by a half-second—just before the thirst demanded I get my teeth in her _now_, his anger demanded something similar and we met with a grinding smash. We were comets. We would break on each other and our shrapnel would fall in with the glass shards on the ground. Marble and glass.

We did not break. He hit me low and rolled me midair—I should have been stronger but he had the _pain, _the blaze-eyed momentum that even my hunger couldn't hope to match. I hit the ground with him on my chest, his hands on my neck and jaw like he meant to take my head off. He _did _meant to take my head off, but I twisted to the side and lashed up at him with my arm, rolling us over and getting on my knees and then my feet, throwing him back toward the house. He hit the plasterboard and snapped the wall cleanly, disappearing in plasterdust for a moment before I heard his growl again and then _saw _him, coming fast, avenging-angel, digging in from the painted boards that used to be our house and launching himself at me. I looked at him—me, Jasper Hale, veteran of the southern rebellion with scars all down my arms, scars that I'd _survived, _people and centuries I'd survived—and I knew I was going to die.

If he'd gotten to me, I would have. There was no doubt about it—one of those strange freeze-frame moments of utter clarity. Except that he didn't get to me. He didn't even get out of the house—as I stood there still and watched him charge me, I saw a hand snake out from behind the broken wall and grab him by the arm, _jerking _him back hard enough that had he been human he would have dislocated his shoulder. Instead he just fell back like a fish on a line, locked into Carlisle's grip as our father got hold of one arm and then the other.

He couldn't get free, but he _tried—_his feet scrabbled against the floor and his arms still reached for me, his face sharp and loose and out of control. I'd never _seen _Edward like this, _Edward,_ Mr. Frozen Control, and I think that kicked me back to reality more than anything. Watching him lose the face he'd held since I'd known him, breaking to pieces and pieces. _Something very bad has happened, _I knew, and the bloodlust started to lift out of sheer, jolted shock.

"You killed her!" he yelled, teeth snapping, foam-flecked half-rabid. "You killed her, you killed her, you killed her!" It went on, his mind stuck on a loop remembering the only thing that mattered. And suddenly, I knew _exactly _what I'd done.

I tore my eyes from Edward's and turned to the side. Where Isabella Swan was laying in the grass with her hair tangled beneath her head, her limbs strange and crooked, her neck strange and crooked and painted bright acrylic red. Her blood in her hair and on her shirt and on the grass around her.

Guilt jumped up from my chest and swallowed me whole.


	2. Chapter 2

I remember the last girl I killed

For some of the others, it's difficult to remember—the last time they scrolled the Vampirics Anonymous calander back to zero. Most of their last kills were more than a decade ago, unpleasant memories but vague ones. Mine was a year and a half ago.

I was hunting alone—never a good idea for me. I'd had a rare fight with Alice, so I was already in the red. I went out for cougars and deer and found humans instead. Two hikers, a young woman and an older—the young woman was a ways ahead, on her knees beside a stream, splashing water into her face and onto the back of her neck. Her hair was bright albino-blonde, pulled into a loose ponytail. This was the only thing that I noticed about her in the split second before I killed her.

It wasn't really like I'd meant to. You have to understand that this is quite simply the way we are put together. Our instincts have no understanding of morality. See a human, eat a human, as natural and casual as plucking an apple from a tree.

No one was there to stop me that time, and I drank her dry. Again, instinct—I wouldn't be able to stop myself now that I had blood on my tongue, would be a vampire and not Jasper until I was done. Like waking up the morning after a party and suddenly realizing you were in someone else's bed, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling.

No Edward to stop me then, but a similar catalyst to bring me back to my senses—the scream of someone discovering what I had done. I was standing in the shallows of the stream with blood floating on top of the water behind me when the mother came through the last trees and saw me there. And screamed.

A normal vampire would have known exactly what to do—kill the mother, keep feeding, no big deal. But her screamed snapped me back to being Jasper, and exactly what it meant to be holding this girl with her blond hair trailing down into the water behind her. I looked at her mother with the same white-blond hair, and eyes that looked like someone had just stabbed her and she was halfway to dying. Guilt came at me like a sandstorm and covered me, burying me hot and coarse. I suffocated with it.

I had thought that was rock bottom, right there—looking at that mother's eyes and realizing what I had done, whose blood was on my hands after all these years of honing my self-control. But I knew now that those eyes were _nothing, _not compared to looking at Edward's eyes with his Bella lying dead just yards away. I have never been suicidal but I wanted to die. I wanted to blank out completely and forever and not exist as the person who'd just done what I'd done.

Edward seemed perfectly happy to oblige. "I'll kill you!" he was yelling from where Carlisle held him. "I'll _kill _you, Jasper, you're _dead!_"

And all this from Edward, our quiet, straight-faced monk of a brother. Emmett and I used to try to mess with him, when we were younger, try to get him mad. It had never worked. He'd only found that range of emotions, fear to anger and back, since he'd found Bella. There had been nothing for him to care about before—hard to get angry when you've got nothing to lose that you couldn't stand losing. Still, he'd never lost it completely, never lost control the way the rest of us did occasionally, inevitably. _Ah, _noted the younger Jasper, still curious about where his limits were. _So this is what it takes. _

The rest of my mind was nowhere near as calm. Self-hatred telling me to jump off a cliff. Guilt and pity telling me to bare my throat to him, to tell him to go ahead, an eye for an eye. Indelible soldier habit telling me to fight and self-preservation telling me to run. No chance of that, at least. I was going so many directions that I could hardly move for the knots.

Edward broke an arm free from Carlisle and threw it out towards me, fingers stretching and scrabbling for me uselessly, still thirty feet away. Suddenly I felt Alice's hand in mind, the familiar smallness of it, and she was standing slightly in front of me, her body angled between Edward and me. My mind registered as always the absurdity of it, _her _protecting _me _and a full foot shorter than me, skinny as a birch, but as always I had to push the absurdity aside and remember exactly who Alice was. A low growl rippled from her chest and through her teeth, and she glared Edward down.

It was the first time I'd thought to be aware of the rest of the family—a quick startled look showed me Esme behind Carlisle, Rosalie standing back calmly with her arms folded across her chest. Emmett crossing the yard to pick Bella up from the grass, her limbs all going the wrong way as he lifted her, a broken-doll horror-movie image. Shaking his head as he started to know what I knew, that she was dead_, _absolutely heart-stopped no-coming-back-from-this _dead. _If she'd been even the slightest bit alive, vampire venom would have fixed everything, but I'd really done a number on her. Guilt pumped in my chest like my heart was alive again, jump-started to life by shame and self-loathing.

"Let me go," Edward said quietly as Emmett carried her to the house. He'd gone suddenly still, quiveringly in control again, straight-faced Edward. He was looking at _her. _"Let me go, Carlisle. Bella—"

Carlisle understood—or at least thought he did. He released Edward carefully, hovering close in case he needed restraining again. He did need restraining, but Carlisle wasn't nearly close enough. Because his unfinished sentence wasn't _Bella is dead, let me go to her, _it was _Bella is dead, and someone else is going to die for it. _His body snapped away from Bella in the instant Carlisle let go, and he jumped at me.

I discovered something very suddenly in that split second, in the way that my feet slid back into a stance and my lips pulled back from my teeth—that I did not want to die after all. Yes, there was guilt, a hundred thousand pounds of it, worse guilt than I'd ever felt and the fear that I was a terrible, irredeemable pitch-black soul. But I'd lived with guilt. Guilt had been a step behind me my whole life, right over my shoulder—we were almost friends, by now, or at least weary acquaintances. I was the black sheep Cullen, the one who couldn't keep his mouth closed to stop eating people. And so now, looking guilt in the eyes, it was something like _oh, hello. It's you again. Come on in, I've been expecting you. _

No matter how much I might deserve to die for my latest crime, my body wouldn't let me do it. I didn't _want _to die. So when Edward came for me, I dragged Alice backward by the hand and got in front of her and got ready to fight him. Just as he was about to hit, though, something caught him midair, Emmett this time, snatching him out of the air by the collar of his shirt and yanking him away from me, pinning him.

"_Stop it, _Edward!" he barked in his rumbling, authoritative bass. "Calm down, man, don't do something you're going to regret!"

"I am _not _going to regret this," Edward bit back. "He _killed _Bella, I'm going to kill him!"

"Maybe he should," I found myself saying, my martyr side resurfacing now that he wasn't attacking me.

"_Hush, _Jasper," Alice said sharply, bristlingly mother-bear defensive. "Nobody's going to be killing anyone! It was an accident, everyone saw that!"

"Alice, don't be stupid," Emmett said, slightly breathless from restraining Edward's thrashing. "There _will _be consequences for this, either way. All I'm saying is we shouldn't do anything rash."

"What do you mean, _consequences_?" Rosalie said suddenly from beside the wall. "She was only a _human._"

This brought a fresh burst of struggling from Edward, his eyes halfway to crimson with bloodlust even though he'd fed two days ago, very specific and targeted bloodlust. "Only a—" he snarled, unable to even finish. "Only a—?"

"She was his bonded partner, Rose!" Emmett yelled, equally appalled. "How can you even—"

"Emmett, Rosalie!" cut in Esme with an edge we'd rarely heard in her voice. "Behave!"

"I don't care if she was the Queen of England!" Alice's furious soprano climbed to the top of all the noise as she stalked forward, two steps in front of me now and practically mantling, a hawk with her wings spread around me. "_Nothing _is going to happen to Jasper, understand? It was a _mistake_!"

Vampire voices are very beautiful. The adjective I've heard most often is _musical, _described as bell choirs and clear clarion notes. But not all notes harmonize with other notes, and not all bells are pleasant to listen to. The sound of six voices rising in cacophony, smashing against each other in dissonant anger, was, yes, technically musical. But not pleasant. The notes of their voices sounding like they were trying to tear each other apart.

As soon as Alice took one more step forward, arguing furiously, I took a step back. No one seemed to notice, not even Alice, not even Edward—I was sure their minds were caught up with other things right now, debating whether I should live or die. I took a last careful look to see if anyone was watching me, and then I slid silently into the woods behind us and I started to run.

I wasn't sure whether it was cowardice, self-preservation, panic—I wasn't sure what it was powering me as I moved quickly between the trees, where exactly I intended to go. The flat-line horrified impulse to run seemed to be only saying _away, _far enough that I couldn't hear their voices twisting together in six-part disharmony behind me. Away from Bella with her arm bending the wrong direction. Away from Edward with his eyes like a whole city burning. Just _away. _

I ran without thinking, and instinct took over. I ran south.


	3. Chapter 3

I stopped running when the sky stopped having clouds in it.

It had been evening when I left, the light just going dusky, and I ran all the way through it until morning. We'd been in Forks for almost ten years, so at first it surprised me to have the sun hit my skin and sparkle—not the god-statue blaze of a midday sun but a faint mother-of-pearling, the morning stroking curiously against my arms and shoulders. _Oh yeah, _I realized. _Sunlight. I remember you. _Time to get inside.

No cloudcover at all to help me, and that gave me my first hint to where I was. Hot blue sky lying flat against the hot brown earth, pressed tight against each other like a man and woman suddenly lit with desire, desperate to have no space between them at all. The ten thousand shades of brown in just the stretch of desert in front of me, shades of color I'd found even before I had my perfect vampire eyes. A jackrabbit cutting diagonally through my vision, skinny enough to be dead but scrappy enough not to be, a terrible meal for whatever was chasing it. Size-twelve bootprints in the dust where I passed.

I was in Texas. I'd seen no road signs this morning but I was sure of it—this was where I was born, this was where I had _lived. _I knew the look of the sky; I knew the smell of it, spice and dust and bone. The only thing I didn't know was _where _in Texas I was, exactly—up in the north where they still thought they were part of the States? Down near the border where they thought they were Mexico? I should have been reading signs.

I slowed when I caught the scent of humans, turning toward it. I'd been avoiding people as I ran so far, feeling as if I might raze a whole town in the mood I was in, even though that wasn't likely. As unpleasant it was to remember whose blood was sloshing in me right now, the fact was that I'd just fed. _On my brother's fiancée. Fantastic. _Fact was that I probably wouldn't need to feed for awhile. I was—the word sounded bitter even running through my thoughts, acidic—_safe. _

The smell of blood led me to a small town called Calumet, a one-Starbucks twenty-thousand-person sort of town where the pale orange dust is always in your eyes and the gears of your tractor. I hit the borders of it just as the sun started really shining, only the snaking first tendrils of light trying to get past my hooded sweatshirt to show these people what I really was. The sweatshirt was thick black and it probably wasn't past five in the morning—the streets were empty and my cover was fairly secure. Even so, I ducked into the first hotel I found.

I immediately regretted it. The color scheme was lavender and silver, and the theme seemed to be "Seventies Disco Prom Meets Retirement Home". The smell of potpourri assailed me instantly, drowning me in bottled flower scent. There were so many mirrored surfaces I thought I'd go blind.

I was born in the Civil War South, but I was never part of the plantation culture—never had that sort of inborn refinement, never wore cravats or shined my shoes for soirees. I was born in _Texas, _where maybe we'd shine our belt buckles, if you were lucky. I'd been through so many pairs of boots in my life that I couldn't even count them anymore, and I hadn't practically been out of jeans since they'd been invented.

You couldn't be married to Alice, though, and not eventually pick up a sense of style. I'd learned appreciation for Armani suits, eventually, learned about diamonds and baby grands. My life with the Cullens had been one of (largely Alice-driven) taste—we liked beautiful things, things with smooth, clean lines. We had a hair-trigger sense of what was tasteful and what was not—and this hotel? Definitely not. Alice would have burned it to the ground.

I suppressed my gag reflex. Light was pouring out from the horizon now, ready to rat me out as something not human. I'd walked into this hotel and now I would have to stay in it. _Damn. _

I sighed and reluctantly walked up to the desk—there were small circular mirrors pebbled into front of it, like the kind that hang from wind chimes. I don't think that the people who make wind chimes had ever intended them to be on the front of a desk. Still, I dragged out my most charming smile for the girl behind it, to distract her that I'd just walked in at 5:00 AM with a black hood pulled over my face.

She was instantly distracted—her muddy green eyes popped to twice their size and she grabbed for the bottom of her sandy braid, twisting the ends of it around her fingers in what I knew had to be a compulsive habit. Maybe she twisted her hair whenever she saw vampires. Maybe it was just that she'd never seen anyone in her little Texas town that looked like me.

I don't have much feeling about my own personal beauty anymore, either way. I'm _aware _of it, but not the way Rosalie is, batting her eyes at every mirror. Don't get me wrong, it was nice for the first few decades—beauty is the one universal human coin, and it's a heady thing to suddenly find yourself rich. It's just that, after a hundred years or so, it gets old. Everything gets old.

But I'm certainly not above using it to my advantage. I leaned over the desk with my forearms on the counter, cutting the space between me and Reception Girl until there was barely a foot between us. I heard her heartbeat pick up, and I felt her emotions fluttering like frightened birds. "Hi," I said—then waited to see whether she would pass out.

She didn't. "Hello, sir," she said in a remarkably steady voice, considering her heart rate. I guess I should have remembered that Texas gets rid of the weak ones fast. "How can I help you this morning?"

"I'd like a room," I said, pulling out a black leather wallet that wasn't mine. It belonged to—actually, I hadn't checked the name yet. A man in Forks who had left it in his truck, bad idea on his part. Brian Davison, it said on the credit card. _Sorry, _I silently apologized to Brian as I handed it over. Once I got to a place where I could access my accounts, I'd make it up to him. "Single, nonsmoking." _Tasteful, or is that too much to ask for? _

She was trying to clamp down on her sudden flare of lust—I could feel her shoving it determinedly back as she typed the card in. I tried not to smile. "Here you are, sir," she said, resolutely calm as she handed me the card and a key. "Number twenty-two, just down the hall."

As she passed me the key, two of her fingers brushed against my palm, and I could feel her emotions surge up again. It wasn't funny this time, though, because as she blushed up her cheeks I was suddenly _very _aware of the blood behind them, the blood in her hand where it touched me.

It shouldn't have been this hard. It was _never _this hard just after feeding, I did have _some _self-control, after all. It was just that bloodlust was one of those things that got worse when you screwed up—every time you gave in to it, a huge chunk was kicked out of your tight discipline, disproportionately destructive for every drop of blood past your lips. Because I'd killed Bella yesterday, it was that much easier for me to kill this girl today.

I jerked the key rudely away, walking quickly in the other direction. This was no time to be testing my limits. I couldn't have another mark on my record, not so soon after yesterday. I thought if I had to hold one more person in my arms and feel them dying, I might go insane.

That was why it had been such a relief, finding the Cullens—because when I drank from humans, I _felt _them in my head. Pain and panic and the clawing, kicking desire to live. Being an empath was not always a good thing—in fact, a good half of the time, it sucked. I was still trying to forget the brilliant white flash of Bella's surprise before she died.

Out of everyone in our family, our 'vegetarian' lifestyle was probably the most necessary to me, less a choice and more a way to keep myself sane. It seemed perverse and cruel, then, that I should be the one who couldn't get the hang of it.

I found my room by the blocky silver numbers on its door, and opened the door quickly, not even _caring _how horrible my room was if it meant I could get a few more flimsy barriers between me and the girl. I just needed a minute. I would be fine. Just needed to take a few deep breaths.

When I turned around to look at my room, though, that became instantly impossible. And for once, it wasn't because my curtains were lavender or my kitchen was chrome.

It was because Alice was there, sitting on my Bedazzled bedspread with her legs crossed, waiting for me.


	4. Chapter 4

When people described Alice, there was one word that they always used, every time, without fail. Pixie.

She never minded—it made her smile and giggle and want to watch "Peter Pan". Of course she never minded, Alice never minded anything. _I _minded. Not because she didn't have a pixie-like quality to her—a way of moving like she should have wings. It was just that the word "pixie" implied a certain preciousness, a harmless cuteness. Alice was not cute. Alice was _beautiful. _

She was, quite simply, the most stunning woman I'd ever seen, dead or alive. She was breath-knocked-out-of-you beautiful, impossible modern art. So small, and that also implied cute, but you couldn't look her in the eyes and say it. Because of the curves of her that your eyes slid down. Because of the color of her hair, so black it made you blink to look at it, and at such _angles. _I'd had a theory in the nineties that the entire Punk movement had been inspired by her. How could you look at her and _not _be inspired?

Too often I took it for granted, like my own beauty. But sometimes, just turning around too fast, or coming around a corner, it hit me so hard I saw stars. Like now—just seeing her sitting there on my bed made me pull my breath in hard, stop to catch my balance. Because God she was beautiful, and I told her so.

"God, you're beautiful," I said evenly. Statement of fact.

"Aw," she said, not moving. "I bet you say that to all the girls."

"I only mean it with you, doll." Teasing tone, but I was actually feeling very serious. I suddenly felt like an idiot for running off without her. If I thought bloodthirst was bad, I just had to try going twenty-four hours without _Alice. _

I'd known she would come, but only in the vague sense—in the way that I couldn't have stood to be without her, that if _she _had gone running off to Texas, I would have come after her. I didn't know exactly what she was doing here, but I could wait to find out—I flickered across the room and pulled her up from the bed, one hand on the base of her neck and one on her hip as she wrapped her leg around me. I kissed her like I hadn't seen her in years—and her kiss said, silly boy.I've always been here.

"I killed her," I said against Alice's mouth as we kissed. The closest I'd come to saying it out loud yet. "I killed her."

"Shh," she said. Judging from her actions so far, Alice was going to take the Denial road on this one. She did that sometimes—she almost had to. There were dark spots in me, things that made me not good enough for her. She wanted me anyway and so she ignored them.

"He's never going to forgive me."

"Shhh!" She pulled my face back in, frustrated.

I jerked away out of her grip. "_Alice. _There's no way you came here just to make out with me."

"What, like that's not a good enough reason?" Another reason why 'pixie' didn't apply to her—when she got mad, she was _scary. _She looked vaguely dangerous on a normal day, anyway, and when her eyes flashed like that—you half expected her to pull out a switchblade and slash your jugular, then fist-pound a guy named Spider and ride off on a motorcycle. Pixies didn't ride motorcycles. "Are you doubting my motives, Jasper Hale?"

"Not doubting," I said calmly. "Just wondering."

She sighed, tucking her chin into the hollow of my shoulder. "Just—got tired of arguing about what we should "do" with you," she said, airquotes and all. "It was like you were on trial, it was _ridiculous. _Like none of us have ever screwed up before."

"No offense," I said bleakly, "but I think I take the trophy."

"We'll have in inscribed," she said, trying to joke her way out of my mood. "Jasper Hale, First Place, National Screw-Ups Grand Prix."

"Very funny," I mumbled into her hair. "How did you beat me here, anyway?"

"I took your bike. It's outside."

She was about the only person I would trust with it. "I can't believe you even set foot in this hotel. You must have _seen _it in your vision."

"Don't remind me," she said blackly.

_I hope they have fire insurance. _"So," I said, "I don't suppose you happened to bring any sort of a…plan?"

"Not really," she said, kissing my jaw lightly. "You thinking a plan for fixing the family, or a plan for running away forever?"

"Did you see the way he _looked _at me?"

"Oh, so that's just it then?" That sharp tone was back in her voice, disapproving. "A hundred and ten years of being a family and suddenly, poof, that's all gone? He's your _brother, _Jasper."

"Yes," I said flatly, "and I killed his fiancée." Even _humans _got mad about that sort of thing.

"He'll forgive you."

"He won't."

"He'll forgive you, Jasper."

"Maybe he shouldn't."

"Would you stop with the self-pity? Everything will be fine. Edward will—"

She broke off suddenly, her eyes going wide and shallow. I knew the look.

"What is it?" I asked, taking her by the shoulders. "What do you see?"

"Edward—" she said, then closed her mouth again, like she was trying _not _to say something, or not to see it.

"Edward what?" I fished. "What is Edward doing?" Her pupils dilated back to normal, and suddenly it was me she was looking at again. I could feel her pity, but that had been there—what was new was the sudden fear. "Alice, tell me what's happening."

"It's Edward," she repeated. "He's coming here."

"What? _Why?_"

The pity and the fear kicked up in equal doses, fear just barely outracing it. I knew it couldn't be fear for herself, Alice wasn't afraid of _anything. _So that meant it had to be—

Her hand wrapped around my wrist, tighter than she probably knew. "I guess you were right," she said wryly. "He's _not _going to forgive you."

"He's—what?" Alice usually tried to be fairly direct about her visions, but I wasn't getting it this time.

"He's coming," she said grimly, getting off the bed, pushing a set of keys into my hands. "You have to go _now. _He's very angry, and he's going to do something he'll regret."

"What do you mean, _me_?" I said, trying to hand the keys back to her. I recognized them, it was the keys to my motorcycle, but the fact that she was handing them to me made me suspicious. A motorcycle was generally a one-person transportation.

"I can't come with you," she said, still brisk and busy, halfway to panic. "He's picking up on my visions of where you are and where you're going to be—if I'm this close to you I won't be able to prevent myself from seeing your future. I need to get far enough away—"

"_Alice_." I'd lost a lot of things in my life, and I was starting to get the hang of it. I knew where my limits were. I could lose my home and family and it would hurt like hell, it would close to kill me, but I would make it. I would deal. I could not lose Alice. She was my limit. Especially now, when I was spun half out of control, needed so badly to have something to hang onto. "I _need _you, okay? I need you. Can't we just—"

"Jasper, if I stay here, you will _die,_" she said sharply. "I can _see _it." I stepped back, hit by the harshness of her tone. She stepped forward to close the gap I'd just made, putting her hand on the side of my face to kiss me. I kissed her back too hard, bending her spine—searching for something in her, some part of her I could anchor to when she was gone.

"You leave first," she said when she pulled away, half-breathless. "He won't kill me. Get out _fast, _take your bike and just get as far away as you can. Try to find more vampires, or even people, a group you can hide yourself in. It'll make it harder for him to hear you. Now _go._"

My body wasn't crazy about the idea of walking away—_just keep looking at her for a few more seconds, _it argued, _just so you can remember the exact color of her eyes, after she's gone. Just a few more seconds. _Alice saw my hesitation—she put her hands flat on my chest and pushed me away.

That got me all the way to the door, walking quickly, flipping the motorcycle keys up into my hand. I looked back as I opened it, just in case somehow things had changed in the last two seconds, but her eyes still looked the same. "Go," she said firmly, and with such force that I might have been offended if I hadn't been able to feel her fear and worry and pain at not leaving with me. "I'll find you as soon as it's safe."

I smiled the biggest smile I could manage. "Love you, doll."

"Love you, babe," she smiled back, ironically. "Now would you please get the hell out?"


	5. Chapter 5

EDWARD

Back when I was human, I'd always wanted older brothers. They'd just seemed like a good thing to have—protected you, played with you, threw things at your head. My best friend when I was eleven had an older brother named David, and David was always _doing _things with him, _taking _him places, walking around their house with that air of teenaged cool that older kids had already had even decades ago. I couldn't imagine anything better.

Then I'd actually gotten some—a little late in life, sure, but I'd gotten some, two older brothers in my sudden new family. And they were just as good as I'd imagined. I no longer needed protecting, but besides that they were just the same as David, taking me hunting, playing baseball with me, occasionally reaching out for no reason and tousling my hair. Emmett wrestled with me, got up to his elbows in grease with me teaching me how to fix a carburetor. Jasper gave me girl advice and taught me how to shoot a gun. Things had been very perfect for a very long time.

As it turned out, the big brother thing didn't work out so well for me after all. Because now I was sitting in the opposite corner of a room from Emmett, standing by the door with his arms crossed over his massive chest—standing there with the express purpose of stopping me leaving the room. And my other brother had killed Bella.

I could hear the pity in Emmett's thoughts, and it made me want to punch him. Not terribly fair of me—Emmett was even on my side. Inexplicably enough, he'd been the eye of this particular storm, the proponent of justice, the one who wanted to look at the problem logically from all angles. The unspoken penalty for killing a vampire's bonded mate was death, and he wasn't sure it should be taken that far, but he did believe there should be some kind of restitution.

_Like what, a fine? _I thought bitterly to myself as I followed his thoughts. _Twenty lashes? What? What do you really think Jasper could do that would fix this? _Bella's body was lying on the kitchen table downstairs, waiting for Carlisle to get around to calling the coroner. They would call once they'd come up with an acceptable excuse for why more than half the bones in her body were broken.

I'd told Bella a few times before that if she died, I was pretty much going to follow her as soon as possible. The world seemed entirely pointless without her in it, lacking poles, spinning blackly between stars. I wasn't sure if I believed in Heaven and Hell, but wherever she was, I wanted to be there. I'd known since I met her that I would feel this way, should anything ever happen.

There was one thing I hadn't predicted, though—the very strong sense of revenge, almost overpowering my loss, making itself known. Had I ever killed someone in cold blood? Well, no. Wasn't he my brother? Technically, yes. Would I kill him? Oh, definitely yes. That was, of course, if he didn't kill me first—which would serve my purposes either way, a neat, Jasper-inflicted suicide. If I killed him, I'd be revenged. If he killed me, he would have to _live _with killing me. I knew Jasper, I knew the way he suffered over his slip-ups, his empathy replaying them over and over with a vivid sense of their horror as they died. And they were just random humans, people he'd never met. _Let's see how he deals with killing his brother. _

Of course, I had to get out of this room first.

I'd been keeping careful tabs on Jasper and Alice's thoughts since I'd been shut up here, under lock and key and Emmett-guard until I could "come back to my senses". Jasper's thoughts weren't much help, just view after view of endless brown desert. Alice was more helpful—she was focusing on him, getting visions of his near future so that she could head him off. A small motel in Calumet, Texas. He'd be there in four hours. I had to be there, too.

There was a window to my left, but Emmett was barely bothering to guard it. Why should he, when he could get there in a sixteenth of a second if I so much as twitched? Distances meant different things when you were a vampire. I wasn't sure I could beat Emmett to the window, but I might not have to.

"Emmett," I said, doing a very good impression of Calm and Rational Edward. "I want to talk to Carlisle."

Would this work? I'd been waiting till Alice's visions settled to try it, because I wanted to be sure of my destination, and also because I was afraid it might not work at all. We had strong bonds of trust within my family, but they'd cracked a little in the last few hours. I wasn't sure whether Emmett would buy it.

"All right, I'll go get him." Hook, line, and sinker. For a moment, I almost wanted to say no, I'm lying to you, don't be stupid—but speaking of being stupid, that probably wouldn't be the best strategic move.

He even left the door open when he walked out—practically inviting me to escape. _Obviously it was meant to be_, I rationalized—but I wasn't going out the door.

I jumped from the second-story window and landed lightly, bones and joints catching me with better-than-human strength, and I was running from the instant I hit the ground. Not too quickly, yet—not the ground-eating desperate sprint that Jasper was running, but a gentle lope. I had a stop to make before I left Forks.

I slowed my pace even further to a human run as I neared Charlie Swan's house. For once, I felt like a normal teenage boy—terrified of the girl's father, dragging my feet as I walked the three steps to his door. This was what Bella would want, I reminded myself harshly. Not some impersonal obituary from a stranger—she would want him to hear the truth, as much as I could give it to him, and it was only right that he should hear it from the people responsible.

I wasn't blaming myself for her death, yet, though I was sure that would come. The thoughts materialized every so often—_you should have been standing closer. You should have seen her neck in his mind. _It was almost a blessing, though, that it had happened the way it had—clearly not my fault, _very _clearly someone else's. I had someone to blame, and someone to chase to the ground. Still. For whatever part of it had been my fault, this was my penance.

I never even had to say the words. He opened the door when I knocked and took one look at my face, and knew. I wasn't surprised—I'm sure it must have been written there quite clearly, the tectonic change of her not being in my life anymore. "No," he said. "No no no no no no no."

I shoved my hands in the pockets of my jacket, just like any teenage boy, and nodded. Yes, Charlie. Sorry.

"What happened?" he demanded. "Is she hurt?" I think he knew, he was just checking. Hoping.

"She's dead, Charlie." The words dug into my throat as they came out, like barbed wire stringing from my mouth. I hoped very much that I'd never have to say it again.

His voice got low and flat, _angry, _sharp when broken like obsidian. "This is your fault."

Couldn't exactly deny it. If I'd stayed away from her, she wouldn't be dead now. Easiest flow chart ever. "Yes," I said simply.

His hand flew to his gun belt, dragging his police-issue handgun from its holster. This was one time I was very glad I wasn't Jasper—that I couldn't feel his sunburst of loss and rage, only see it as his eyes dilated black and he pointed his gun at my chest. If it would have killed me, I would have let him shoot me. But a bullet would only ricochet off my skin, and there was still a secret for my family, even if I didn't care. They'd get discovered and run out of town with pitchforks and torches. I didn't hate them that much yet. Not all of them. So I reached forward and grabbed Charlie's wrist and twisted, popping his grip open so that the gun fell into my hand.

I'd never touched Charlie before. I usually make a conscious effort not to touch people, because of course they could feel it, the hardness of my skin, the coldness of it. I'd never wanted to give my girlfriend's father the impression I was anything less than normal. As my hands touched him now, he jerked backwards, his eyes going wide at the feel of them and at the fact that his gun was suddenly in my hands.

"I didn't kill her," I said evenly, trying to keep us both calm. "That wasn't what I meant. I didn't kill your daughter."

Charlie was usually a _very _calm man, extremely quiet and laid back. We stood across the threshold from each other, two calm men who had found a sudden reason to lose control. His body was handling it badly, shaking so hard I could see it, pale enough to match his daughter on my dining-room table. I wondered if this would kill him too—wiping out everyone who had known Bella because we couldn't survive without her. The sudden withdrawal of a powerful drug.

"You didn't kill her?" he repeated miserably. I knew he wanted it to be me. It was easy for him to hate me.

"No. I just—thought you should know," I finished lamely.

"Thank you," he said stiffly, automatically. I knew of course, he wasn't thanking me for bringing him news of his daughter's death. Just—reacting.

She was still an open wound for me, unsutured, and it was painful to stand face to face with the only other person whose holes were dug as deep as mine. I was trying to block out his thoughts as much as I could, but they kept punching through, less words and more the soundless cries of pain he was locking behind his teeth. They rocked me back on my heels, made me _miss _her again and reminded me of the things I was locking in _me, _the things I hadn't screamed and the tears I had yet to actually sit still and cry. The people I hadn't killed. I turned to go.

"Wait." He didn't touch me again, but his voice caught me and turned me. Barbed wire in his throat, too, scoring long bloody slashes. "The person who killed her—"

"That's where I'm headed." At least I could give him that, and I knew how much it helped—letting anger take up too much space for pain to cram itself in.

"Good," he said grimly. "Take my gun."

I slapped it back into his hand, and goosebumps ran up his skin where I touched him. "I won't need it."


	6. Chapter 6

JASPER

My motorcycle only went maybe fifteen miles an hour faster than I could run, top speed. That was why I'd never seen the point of cars, really—why cram yourself into a metal box when you could run instead? Motorcycles were different, though—the wind slicing past you as you drove, the shape of your body punching a hole in the air. The feral growl of the engine when you moved your hands or feet. I might be a vampire, but I was still a _guy—_and I loved it. There was something about the magical formula of testosterone plus loud engines that was just never going to get old.

Driving one hundred and twenty miles an hour presented a whole new set of problems, though, even down mostly empty roads. It was still only about four o'clock in the afternoon, and I'd been passing humans all day—I had to keep my hood up and my sleeves over my hands and hope they didn't wonder why I was out here in ninety degree weather with a sweatshirt on. It was a very good thing that vampires weren't bothered by temperature. I just sped on past the occasional pickup truck as fast as I could, trying not to let them get a look at the way the sun was hitting my skin.

It made me uncomfortable to be out during the day. Of course I was grateful that the myths of vampires burning alive in sunlight weren't true, but by this point in our culture it might as well have been. We stayed out of the sun by habit anyway—it made us tense and jumpy, like we were doing something wrong and about to be caught any minute. I think, somewhere buried in our psyches, we felt we didn't _deserve _to be in the sun. Nighttime, yes, sure—we knew we were damned creatures of the night, and we claimed those hours with all the enthusiasm and glee of people who knew they couldn't sink any further anyway. _Oh, we're evil, then?_ the general vampire philosophy seemed to run. _Well, might as well enjoy it! _

I hit the border at about five. I still had no clear idea of where I was going—far enough away from Edward that I could confuse him into not killing me, was my only real thought—but my instincts kept pulling me deeper south. The soil was getting darker and hotter, the pale green brush more frequent. I could see the outlines of a mountain range in the distance, jagged cutouts of the sky like teeth. This wasn't one of the hardcore Protective/Xenophobic sections of the border, though, not one of the outposts with feet-high walls and armed guards. Really, all there was to let me know I was passing into Mexico were a few strings of rusted barbed wire, the last one only up to my waist. I looked skeptically down at it. That might be effective for keeping cattle from wandering, but it certainly wasn't going to stop me.

I took hold of the wire with both hands and tore it, snapping each wireline in two until there was a big enough hole for me and my bike. Then I got back on, kicked the clutch, and kept riding.

If there hadn't been a fence, I wouldn't have noticed when Texas turned into Mexico. A slightly brighter feel to the air, an occasional difference in the complexion of the truck drivers I passed. South Texas and Mexico had always been fraternal twins anyway, separated at birth, but really, why had they bothered? After awhile, it all blended.

It wasn't until I hit the outskirts of the city that I realized where I'd been going. The sound of it—people arguing and laughing and cutting bad deals, the smell of it like drugs and flowers. Monterrey.

I'd lived here for nearly a century—back before I was a Cullen, when I was a soldier and nearly nothing else. The familiarity of the city stunned me as I rode into its streets, like an old girlfriend who when you go back to her, you remember exactly where her freckles are and how she likes to be kissed. Definitely bittersweet, but familiar. The very vague sense that you are making a bad decision, and the inability to stop yourself. Because this is what you know, and it slips on easily. Your body remembers.

A thought flicked through my head, inevitable, I suppose, of a heart-shaped face and long cinnamon hair. I pushed it aside instantly, but I knew it would be back. Monterrey was connected inextricably in mind with Maria. She was the one who'd brought me here. She was the one who'd sat beside me on its red-shingled rooftops and talked strategy with me until morning, the morbid minute specifics about who to kill and where. We'd had an empire here, her and I—mostly her, who was I kidding, but if I hadn't been happy here then I'd been something close. Busy. Useful. Close to satisfied.

_There's a reason you ran away from all that, _I reminded myself. And there was literally no chance she'd still be here, it had been almost two hundred years. I didn't keep tabs on the constant infighting of the South, but I knew from experience that very few leaders in the land wars survived that long. Either they were killed, or they simply got bored and walked away. We lived a long time. It happened. _She won't be here. _

I looked around at the tiny stalls and stores lining either side of me as I passed, my bike thrumming at nearly a stall in the crowded streets. Selling scarves and fruits that were bursts of color among the flat brown buildings, loudly demanding that you look, that you buy. With my coloring, I would normally have been pegged as an American, an easy mark, but I was making myself as dangerous and antisocial-looking as possible, hunching low over the handlebars. The surrounding buildings were throwing enough shadow that at least I wasn't lit up like a beacon, and the sky was already starting to go dark, but anyone getting too close would see that there was something wrong with me. The noise of the city washed against my ears, pounding repeatedly like surf, but it made me smile a little. _How's this for white noise, Edward? _

I found the nearest inn, and thank God this one was just a normal sort of Mexican halfway house, clean and brown and with no mirrored surfaces in sight. It was very spare, but it seemed wonderful after this morning's disco monstrosity. I slipped easily into well-practiced Spanish with the matronly owner and got a room for the night. Who knew? Maybe I would stay here for awhile. It was far enough away that Edward would have trouble tracking me, crowded enough that he'd have difficulty picking out my thoughts. And it felt a little bit like coming home.

I went back outside to get my bike off the street—I knew better than to leave a gleaming Harley on a Mexican streetside—walking it around back to an alcove outside my window. Someone would probably still have a go at stealing it, but at least I would hear them when they did it.

As I walked around the building, I passed a series of narrow, shadowed alleyways between buildings. My hood was off now—it was past dusk, nearly full night—and I could see more clearly, actually had a peripheral vision now. So I saw instantly every person I passed in they alleys, and I saw within seconds that the man and the woman in the farthest alley were not simply kissing as I'd thought. I let go of my handlebars and turned toward them to be sure, but it was exactly as the corner of my eye had told me—the man was crushing the woman against him, his mouth attached at her neck.

I sighed. I'd forgotten what it was like, to be a vampire in the South. They had a much richer cultural history here, a very long tradition of monster stories. They believed in us here, even when they pretended not to—they had a very healthy respect for things of the night. And so we were less careful. If a body showed up in the morgue with bite marks, the coroner would most likely just shake his head and think _not again. _Girls bled dry in back alleys were just a part of life.

I knew I shouldn't interfere. I wasn't a _werewolf_, after all—I had no reason or charge to protect humans, and besides, the vampire hierarchies here were extremely complex. Who knew what waters I'd disturb if I chose to throw a rock in? But I had spent too many years with Carlisle to make a smart decision.

I was resigned to my own stupidity as I walked over to the alleyway. I knew I'd probably regret this. But still, I walked into the alley mouth and right up to the feeding vampire, grabbed his shoulder in one hand and the girl in the other, and pulled them apart.

He reacted with the ferocity of any animal interrupted feeding, snatching after her and slashing out at me. I looped an arm around the girl's waist and pivoted so that she was behind me, then shoved the vampire back with my other hand. He didn't look very old—maybe a decade or so—and he certainly had nothing on me. He skidded back a half a dozen feet, scrambling for balance.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" he yelled at me in livid Spanish.

"I'm the guy who's taking your meal," I responded. Let him think I was some careless bully, looking for easy blood. "I need you to leave. _Now._" I could feel the girl stirring in my grip—he hadn't taken enough of her blood for her to be seriously hurt.

"You think you can just take her from me like that? You don't know who you're dealing with!"

"Oh God, let me guess," I deadpanned. "You have powerful friends? I'll regret this? Thanks for the heads-up, but I'm good."

"You can't—"

"I can," I said quietly, letting my intimidation voice slip in, pressing down on him. Never failed. "Now get out of here."

I saw his eyes flick over the scars on my hands, my neck, the thousands of vampires that had tried to kill me and failed. Whether or not I would, actually, regret this, he wouldn't be the one to make me. He got out of there.

I let the girl drop from my arm the moment he left, wanting some distance between me and her veins. She caught herself, recovering quickly, one hand clapped to her neck to stop the blood flow. She looked at me sideways, eyes darting like a deer, not sure whether to be grateful or terrified. I couldn't stop looking at her neck.

"You too," I said in broken Spanish—I could hardly make myself say the words, they came out jumbled and wrong. "Get out of here." She took two steps back and then stopped, hesitant. As if confused, and I didn't blame her. "Go!" I barked, and she took off from sheer startlement, running down the alley.

I shook my head to get the scent of her blood out of it, trying to convince myself not to chase her. It would have been easy—she hadn't gone far, I could still catch her. The possibility was enough to keep me frozen at the end of the alleyway until I heard the noise of hands on metal behind me. Someone was touching my motorcycle—probably halfway to stealing it. _Come on, Jasper, _I tried to motivate myself. _Leave the girl, or you're going to get your bike stolen. _

It was still a hard decision. Eventually I made it back to my rooms, though, without an incident to add to my already considerably blackened record. I wondered how long I'd be able to hold out here, in Mexico where the blood came as cheap as wine. I made a quiet bet with myself—three weeks. Three weeks until I slipped up, I could hold out two weeks, couldn't I? Surely this whole thing would be over by then, one way or the other.

I laid back on my bed, even though I obviously wasn't going to sleep. I wasn't sure _what _I was going to do, really. It was strange to be out during the day and shut in at night. Eventually I closed my eyes, lapsing into that sort of restful doze that's the closest vampires can get to sleeping. Not the best idea in itself, because as I cleared my mind, it made way for other thoughts—images I'd been trying to bury all day. Bella with her hair spread on the grass. Edward struggling to get out of Carlisle's grip, one arm stretched out towards me.

A hand closed over my arm and another over my neck, and I was suddenly, violently awake as I was dragged upward, reflective, perfectly-shaped vampire eyes the only things visible in the dark. I reacted automatically, throwing an arm up to break the grip on my neck and lashing out at the hand on my arm, getting a handful of someone's shirt and spinning them so they were between me and the other attackers.

My vision cleared a little and I saw that I had hold of a dark-haired woman, smiling across at me in that disconcerting way that vampires had, thrilled to be in danger. Several other vampires scattered the room behind her, including, I saw, the man from the alley. _Yeah, _I berated myself. _You definitely got yourself into this. _Had I been gone so long from the South that I had forgotten how things worked here? There was no such thing as an isolated incident—you threw a rock in the water, and there were going to be some serious ripples.

"Is this him?" the woman called back, not taking her eyes off me.

"Yeah," the alley vampire confirmed. "That's him."

"Perfect," she said, pulling me in a little closer—slowly, not threatening. "You need to come with us."

"I'm not sure that's going to happen," I warned her. How many were there, seven? Eight? I'd beaten twice that without breaking a sweat, and with losers like Alley Guy thrown in the mix—well…

"Oh, that's cute," she purred, all Spanish vowels and menace. "He thinks he has a choice."

Her grip suddenly tightened on my arm, and I felt something shock out from her hand, a wave of pain and disorientation and then sudden, unexpected blackness.


	7. Chapter 7

I woke up in a tiny, windowless room, so small that someone had curled my legs in just so I'd be able to fit. My body came awake in a panic, remembering its violent last few seconds, and my legs lashed instinctually out they hit a wall, denting it in slightly. I caught my reactions and held them, forcing myself to lie entirely still as I assessed this new situation. Small, dark, rectangular room, about the size of a closet or maybe a little smaller. I gauged the height of the ceiling and decided that it wasn't tall enough for me to stand, so instead I sat up slowly, tucking my knees into my chest to give myself as much space as possible.

I put a hand on the wall I had kicked, the slight concave dent in the metal. My feet certainly hadn't done as much damage as they should have. _Wonder what kind of metal this is. _Didn't matter. This was no time for pondering the details of metallurgy—I needed to concentrate on keeping myself calm.

Whoever had constructed this room had been very smart. See, there wasn't a lot you could do to punish vampires. We're physically impervious to just about everything in the universe, and it is extremely difficult to make us feel any pain whatsoever. Usually, if you were a vampire and you felt pain, it meant that someone was actually killing you—dismembering you, burning you. Capital punishment was the only real punishment for us, which was, as I knew, a serious obstacle for discipline if you were trying to train an army. If you killed a disobedient solider, he certainly would learn his lesson, but then you were out a soldier. Very frustrating.

It seemed that someone in Mexico had found another way. Really, it was quite logical—vampires are, I suppose the best words for it is, claustrophobic. We do fine in buildings and houses and such, but we are, after all, essentially animals. We do not like to be contained. I even occasionally felt it in elevators and revolving doors, the need to get _out, _to get into the open—to have exits, to have room enough to swing your arms. Being in confined spaces would not hurt us, at least not physically. But I've seen the way my kind gets when they're in a space and they can't get out—they go _beserk. _I'd be willing to lay odds that a vampire left in this metal room for any length of time would be completely hysterical when they were let out, driven half-mad and begging to do anything their master wanted. Thoroughly punished.

So I sat very still with my arms wrapped around my knees and tried not to imagine the walls closing, inch by inch, crushing me to glittering vampire dust. Tried to keep control of my breathing. Tried to barely breathe at all. A shudder rolled down my spine as I suppressed a burst of motion, my body wanting to _move _even though there was nowhere to move to. Wanting to hit something, tear the room apart, treat it as if it were an enemy and go for its throat. I knew that all I'd get from that was bruised knuckles and wild-eyed defeat. Still, knowing that intellectually was one thing, and I was still full to brim with the urge to attack. My hands started shaking and I clenched them into fists.

As much as I was willing the room not to have any effect on me, it did. By the time the door opened, I was ready to throw myself into the arms of whoever it was on the other side, to tell them please, I'll do whatever you want, just _get me out of here. _It was the black-haired woman, which helped. She was the one who had knocked me out, however the hell that had happened—no way I was going to beg her for _anything. _I quickly forced myself to change my prepared statement from "Please, please, please get me out of here," to "Hi."

"Hi?" she repeated, one black eyebrow arched.

"Yes," I said coolly. "Hi."

Obviously not the reaction she was used to. "Would you like to come out?" she asked, amused. I had her pegged already—she was the type who watched the world as if it were a play presented for her entertainment, always amusing but never quite funny enough to laugh. She acted as if she were in the audience, and it lent her an air of false superiority. Very obnoxious.

"If it's not too much trouble," I said sardonically.

"Well, come on, then," she said impatiently. "She want to see you."

I didn't even stop to question who 'she' was—I was up and out of the room before the woman could change her mind, suddenly on the other side of her.

She reached out and locked one hand around my wrist, smiling a little, ironic. "Just in case."

Well, there went thoughts of running down the hall and jumping out the window. Apparently I would have to come up with a better plan. "So how does that work, anyway?" I asked as she led me down the hall, nodding at her hand braceleting my wrist. "Last I checked, it was supposed to be impossible to knock a vampire out."

"I can screw with your nerve endings," she said breezily. "Pain receptors, nerve triggers, that kind of thing. You still have them, you know—it's just with this fantastically indestructible skin of ours, nothing every gets through. I'm different, I come from the inside. So don't piss me off," she said with a final sharky smile.

"Noted." We seemed to be inside of a multi-story white stucco building, the kind that always looked so fresh and cool against the desert backdrop. But this was no summer home—I could feel the familiar emotional climate around me, the crackling tension of a military barracks. That certainly didn't bode well for my circumstances—these Southern turf lords were extremely territorial. Unless of course, this particular turf lord was—but no. Shut that thought down, shut the drawer on it.

I followed the vampire woman to a door at the end of the hall, trying not to let her black hair remind me of Alice. It would be hard not to think of her, surrounded by Mexican women with hair nearly as sleek and nearly as black. So sue me, I missed her. I'd earned the right to when I'd married her. The not-as-pretty-as-Alice vampire opened the door and pulled me through after her.

I got through the threshold into a large, whitewashed square room, several vampires in it but one that they were all looking to, unconsciously angling their body towards her as she sat in the middle of them and spoke outward. Cinnamon brown hair falling around a heart-shaped face.

"Maria," I said, my tone almost fatalistic. I was really going to have to learn at some point to trust my instincts, no matter how stupid they sounded. "Right. I should have known." _No, really. I should have known. _

"Jasper," she said, still seated with three vampire men hovering protectively around her, eyes locked on my neck full of scars. She did not get up. "Welcome home."

JACOB

People shouldn't be allowed to give you that kind of news on a random Tuesday. There should be a special day set aside, a day for earth-shattering tragedies, all preplanned and cordoned off. You would know what to expect. You'd go into it prepared, like come on, tragedy. Hit me. I'm ready.

Because I _wasn't _ready, and it didn't seem fair. A sucker punch. Hello Jacob, how was your day at school, have a corn muffin, and oh by the way, Bella's dead.

"It was the bloodsuckers, wasn't it?" I asked my dad as soon as I could speak, a good fifteen minutes later. He didn't answer. "Wasn't it?" I demanded, a bit of a growl coming into my voice.

I intimidated most people. It was a very new sort of phenomenon, ever since I'd shot up a foot and a half and packed on sixty pounds of muscle, and it had been hard to get used to at first. The way people leaned away from me, looked up and up and up my tall, muscular frame with something like awe. When I moved, people flinched. They were scared of me. But even if I was trying, I couldn't intimidate my dad.

"If I tell you," he said calmly, reacting to my anger no more than he had when I threw tantrums as a three-year-old, "I want you to promise me you won't do anything rash."

"I promise," I said immediately, barely thinking about the words except as a hurdle to knowing what the hell, exactly, had happened. Who was responsible and so whose head I would need to rip off.

"The situation is being dealt with," he said, clearly mistrustful of my quick answer. "If we make one wrong move here, everything could explode."

"Dad, I _get _it, just _tell me what happened. _I promise I'll be calm, okay?"

He chose his words carefully, tipping his head to the side as he spoke. The short braid of his hair swished down his neck, settling near the hollow of his jaw. "It appears," he said slowly, "that she was with the Cullens when she died. Preliminary reports show extremely extensive injuries, including some kind of bite mark, but we aren't sure—"

I was out of my chair already, grabbing my jacket from its hook. "You promised you would be calm," Billy said sharply, trying to rein me in.

"Oh darn, our special bond of trust, broken forever," I said, savagely sarcastic. "I have places to be. Later." Still the normal rebellious teenage act, just rebellious about different things. About my best friend getting killed by her vampire boyfriend—not your average teen angst, you had to give me that much.

I threw the door open with enough force to leave a doorknob-shaped dent in the wall, pulling my jacket on as I headed for my motorcycle. Billy was yelling something behind me, but I heard it like it was very far away, buzzing and blurred, like bad reception on a TV. I was sure he'd get on the phone at once with the rest of the Council, rogue werewolf on the loose and all that, but I thought I could get a pretty good distance away before they took any action. That was the reason I wasn't phasing immediately—I just needed the element of surprise, for as long as I could get it.

My own words echoed back in my head as I knocked away the motorcycle kickstand, roaring the engine to life. _I have places to be. Later. _

_Right, _I snorted as I drove my bike out onto the road. _Places to be. People to kill. Edward Cullen, you'd better start running. _

--

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I know I'm bending the timeline a little by adding Jacob, seeing as this fic was inspired by the beginning of "New Moon", but heck. It seems like a good idea to throw him in, I'm just going to go with :). Please forgive me for breaking canon, and thank you so freaking much for your awesome reviews. Seriously. Love them to death, every single one of them, they only make me write faster. Reviews are quite literally my jet fuel. So thanks again!


	8. Chapter 8

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Two chapters today :). It's actually sort of a preemptive apology, because I'm going to get my wisdom teeth removed tomorrow. So because I'll be all hopped up on pain meds and stuff, I'm not sure how much I'm going to be able to write for the next few days. So yeah, just letting y'all know—I'm not ditching the fic, just getting nasty, terrifying elective surgery. Who knows, I could be back writing tomorrow--it's just that I'm not sure. Freakin' wisdom teeth. Okay, anyway—the story:

--

It was hard to work out how I felt about seeing Maria again. That was the difficulty about being an empath—everyone else's emotions were an open book to me, easily accessible, part of the atmosphere. I was used to plucking loves and hates out of thin air, spreading panic with a thought. But when it came to my _own _emotions, well…that was harder. It was hard to figure out what _I_ felt, just me, separate from whatever else I was feeling around me. It was hard to pay enough attention to myself long enough to figure it out. I was used to directing my thoughts outward, pulling things in with the net of my ability. It was hard to turn my sight inward instead, it felt stiff and unnatural. Introspection wasn't really a skill of mine.

So here was what I felt about seeing Maria again: confusion. There had been an instant rush of nostalgia, but that wasn't even really emotion at all, just a triggered reaction. _Aw, remember when we trapped those rebel newborns in the market square and slaughtered them all under the harvest moon? Good times, Maria, good times. _That wasn't even the issue. The main conflict seemed to be over whether I wanted to be alone with her or not.

Part of me really wanted to. Maybe this was less wanting to be with her than wanting everyone else to go away, these Southern soldier hotbloods with their scheming and savagery. I remembered them—I'd been _one _of them, and so I knew what it meant when they looked at me out of the sides of their eyes. They made me feel surrounded, outnumbered. She'd sent all of them away but two, the black-haired woman—Vida—and her brother. This wasn't enough, though, because from what I could feel from them, they were probably the worst of the lot. I hated the way the brother, Raj, stood just behind me, just slightly over my shoulder so that I was practically twitching with the desire to turn and get a fix on him, but far enough away that I'd look stupid and paranoid if I did it. He was prodding at me, a possible rival checking for weaknesses.

Vida was less subtle. She stood straight across from me and looked me in the eyes, smirking. The casual malice I felt from her was _very _distracting—the cold-blooded destructiveness of a Roman emperor about to point his thumb down. They had me pinned between them—I couldn't see them both at once. They were jackals. I wanted them _out. _

At the same time, I wasn't sure I wanted to be left alone with Maria. Our lives had been so intertwined for so long—and after just a few minutes with her, I knew she still had a hold on me. Not the way that Alice did, exactly, but more of a Queen-to-subject relationship. Maria had this quality about her that made you want to kneel at her feet, kiss her hand and start making impossible promises, stringing them together wholesale like constellations. She always had. With the experience I had now, I knew it was probably some sort of vampiric ability, the way she could catch people and hold them. The way she could fascinate you long after you thought you'd seen everything of the world, the way you could still be dazzled.

I didn't want to be caught. Or did I? I wasn't sure how much of it was Maria and how much of it was me, but already I was entertaining notions of staying, being here in Monterrey as her general. Reliving the glory days, so to speak, even if they hadn't been all that glorious to begin with. It was somewhere to stay. It was a way to shield myself when Edward came for me, a nice thick buffer of soldier newborns. I knew from experience that I could survive in this environment, I'd done it before. I hadn't been happy, no. Not really. But perhaps I hadn't tried hard enough. Maybe my unhappiness had just been not being with Alice, missing her even before I'd met her. If I could just somehow get Alice to Mexico with me—

"You left me," Maria was saying. I tried to make myself concentrate—there were enough pitfalls in just an average conversation here that I couldn't afford to have my attention elsewhere. The minute political shiftings in every word—this one wasn't subtle, though, this was an attack straight on. _Why did you desert me? _she was demanding. _How can I trust you now?_

"If you'll recall," I replied carefully, trying to strike just the right balance between wry humor and truth. I kept a close hold on her emotions, watching for the smallest change, "you were thinking about killing me."

"I wouldn't have _done _it," she said airily, waving one long white hand. Maria had always reminded me of the plantation belles, the hoop-skirted South Carolina girls I'd met so frequently when I'd been alive—beautiful, manipulative, and very used to getting their way. She had that specific kind of devious, strategic cleverness that wasn't common, and you could see it in her black eyes as she narrowed them. You got the impression she was three steps ahead of you. "I'm afraid you jumped the gun on that one, dear."

I shrugged, trying to fill the air with the same sort of laid-back feel, a good-natured feeling of calm. "Better safe than sorry, I guess."

"I _missed _you," she said, her eyes showing me hurt and leaving me to guess whether it was real.

"I thought about you the whole time," I lied. I had closed the door hard on Monterrey, and the instant Alice had taken my hand in Philadelphia diner, I'd never looked back. "About this place. I'm sure you knew I couldn't stay away for long." Whatever I thought she wanted to hear—whatever would make her trust me enough to get me a place beside her for as long as I needed.

"I knew you'd be back," she purred, eyelids half lowered. She was _so _self-absorbed, so convinced everything revolved around her, but in her case it was almost justified because of how often it did. "You belong with me."

Behind me, I saw Raj stiffen, his shoulders going tighter. Just as I'd suspected—he was her latest model in disposable mates, the vampire she was currently swearing she'd love till the end of time. Not all vampires bond as strongly as my family does, and some never do at all. I'd seen a few of Maria's 'mates' come and go, and I recognized Raj's reaction—the jealousy of a lover who subconsciously knows he's not going to last. I wanted to tell him that it was nothing like that at all—Maria had never seen me that way even when I'd wanted her to. It was just a matter of belonging—her getting back a possession she felt she was entitled to. I was valuable to her, but only as an asset—as a thing.

"Um," I said. I knew I should have a quick answer ready, yes of course, ma'am, I'm your toy soldier, ma'am. But it had been a long time since I'd answered to anybody, and it gave me a couple seconds' pause. "Yes. Absolutely."

Vida smirked, her mouth twitching up. I was feeling a strange emotion from her now, close to affection but nowhere near as nice. I couldn't quite hold of it. From Raj, it was easier—sheer anger, jealous pique. I sent a wave of calmness in his direction to counteract it. "Oh, he's _so _convincing," Vida said sardonically.

"I'd lay odds he's a spy from Mexico City," Raj slid in easily after his sister, building on her. "You know they'd love to get a piece of our territory, Maria."

"Quiet," she said impatiently. "I've known Jasper longer than I've known _either _of you—longer than I've known both of you put together. You would do well to keep that in mind. Now leave us, I want to speak to him alone."

A simultaneous rush of horror and joy—I still didn't know what I wanted. The horror, though, might have been from Raj. I could tell even looking at him that he wasn't thrilled to be leaving me with Maria. I sent him a look, half-warning, half-placating, and he glared back as if he meant to kill me on the spot, light me on fire using only his eyes. I sighed quietly to myself as they left the room. It was a good thing I didn't have to worry about my blood pressure, because the next few days were shaping up to be very stressful indeed.

"Tell me the truth," Maria said as soon as they were gone, a command. "Have you really come back to me, or are there other motives? I'll be glad to have you, Jasper, I've never had a second like you since you left—but if you are somehow playing me, I _will _kill you this time."

"This is where I belong." I even managed to say it with a straight face.

She stood with startling quickness and moved toward me, almost unbearably graceful, bright-skinned bright-eyed. Maybe she could kill me, I admitted to myself. It would at least be a fight. I had forgotten the violence of her, all motion and passion and vibrantly, stormingly _alive. _She herself, without her army, without anyone else and on her own two feet, was a force to be reckoned with.

She walked across the room until she was inches away from me, her eyes punching into me like she was trying to find something under my skin—I could smell her, copper and lilies. I stood very still and let her look. Finally, seeming a little frustrated, she reached forward and put her hand on the side of my face, pulling me into a kiss.

It was a shock at first, to feel her lips on mine—I hardly knew how to react, my thoughts all fluttering up suddenly like birds on a wire. _Wait—what? _was my first reaction, and then just a hard, simple _No. _I put my hands on her shoulders and pushed her away, trying to be careful, not to put her guard up. Giving her the _no_ as politely as possible, but still a no.

"I'm married," I told her quietly, firmly.

"_Are _you?" She didn't seem frustrated anymore—as if whatever she was looking for, she had found. "Where's the lucky girl? Married life start to bore you?"

"We had a temporary problem not relating to our relationship," I said steadily. "I'm sure she'll join me here as soon as possible."

"I'm sure she will." She sounded like Vida for a moment, condescending, amused. "Well, I suppose I'll find out soon enough how pure your motives are, Jasper. Find a room, but try not to get too comfortable. You're going to have to _earn _my trust back."

I didn't buy it. She'd missed me—I could feel her satisfaction at having me back. "I suppose I'll be seeing you around, then," I said, moving toward the door. I could still feel the pressure of her kiss, the possessiveness of her hand in my hair. I wanted to be out of this room.

"You certainly will," she said, and she turned away from me. Permission to go.

I got out of the room quickly, unsettled and not quite sure exactly what I'd gotten myself into. I was hungry, and jumpy, and I'd just promised allegiance to a Mexican feudal landowner. And I missed Alice. Because of the way she smiled, and because of the memory of Maria's hand in my hair. _Where are you, Alice? _I sent out silently, wishing for once that I had Edward's abilities. _Hurry it up, please. I need help._

As I left the room I saw Raj standing outside the doorway, leaned up against the wall with his arms crossed. His eyes stayed on me as I walked past him down the hall.


	9. Chapter 9

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Well, I seem to be allergic to painkillers. Yeehaw. But besides that, the whole wisdom teeth thing seemed to go fairly well. If this chapter is at all loopy, though, my apologies. Blame the Vicodin :). Anyway, thank you all for your support! I'm doing good now.

--

JACOB

_Jacob. _

_Jacob, Jacob. _

_Come back. Jacob, come back to us. _

Now I knew how it felt to be schizophrenic.

Technically, I guess that's something I should have known for months—all these extra voices in my head—but it had all seemed so natural then, the collective, the feel of the pack. It had surprised me how easily I slipped into it.

This was different. This was me against the pack, my own mind fighting against the other people in it. It felt shattered and divisive, like trying to cut my own arm off. Like looking in a broken mirror with the breaks dividing up your reflection, distorting it. My freaky wolf instincts were telling me to run the other direction, to be with the pack, to be _safe. _I wanted to run with wolves at my side, slipping through the trees at my shoulders. But there were things I wanted to do and things I needed to do, and I was starting to learn the difference.

I'd always hated the hot, sulfurous smell of a vampire, especially lately when Bella had insisted on hanging around so many of them. She'd thought she could trust them. I had tried to warn her so many times—there's no such thing as a leech keeping his fangs to himself. It was like those girls who date the losers, the bad guys who they _know _are scum but they bring them into their lives anyway, thinking, I'll be the one to change him. I'll be the exception. What is it with those kinds of girls? I'd known Bella long enough to know she didn't have a death wish, but what else could you call it, wrapping your arms around your own death, kissing it on the mouth?

I appreciated the vampire smell this time, for the first time in my life. I put my nose to the ground and followed it, chasing it south out of Oregon. With my werewolf senses, I could track anything—I could track a moth halfway across the country if I wanted. This was nothing—practically a trail of neon arrows pointing me in the direction Edward had gone. I'd been worried at first that I'd get his scent crossed with other vampires—they were far from the only vamps I'd encounter, they were _everywhere_, like a plague. It hadn't been a problem. Thanks to Bella, I'd spent far more time in Edward's presence than any other vampire, and I'd learned that even that kind of blazingly unpleasant smell had its nuances—a certain tang that helped me pick his scent out from the others.

_Jacob! Jacob, get back here right now! It's not worth it, man. _

_It's not worth it. You're not going to change anything. It's not going to help._

_Oh yeah? _I snarled, responding for the first time in hours. _It's not going to help me to tear the bloodsucker to pieces so small they'll have to sweep him up with a broom? I beg to differ, Embry. This is what we call closure. _

_No, man, this is what we call revenge. _

_Same thing. _

And I shut myself down again, trying to think as little as possible, trying to keep their voices to background noise as I loped easily through the green, low-brush Utah valleys. The elders had once told us that the Alpha of the pack could learn a specific type of command, an Alpha voice that none of us would be able to disobey. Thank God Sam hadn't worked out how to do it yet, but I wasn't taking any chances. Besides, I sensed a sort of half-heartedness in some of their thoughts, a feeling that maybe it was all right if there was one less leech in the world, after all. Of course they weren't thrilled with me going renegade, and it made them worried for me to be this far away, but if I did manage to kill Edward? There wouldn't be any tears in La Push, that was for sure.

I churned the dark soil with my claws as I pushed off every step, leaving prints and marks that park rangers would puzzle over in the morning. He'd come this way—I could smell him. His trail was lit up before me like someone had soaked it with gasoline, and I was the match. I was the catalyst. I lit it up as I passed. The moon was directly over my head and I felt I would outchase it—there was no way it could keep up with me at the speed I was going, nothing could, nothing could outrun me tonight. I had Edward in front of me and Bella behind me, memories of her. I could outrun them, I _could. _I could run so fast that the memories would blow out of my head and scatter behind me, ashes on the ground. I could kill the monster who killed her and put her memory to rest. I couldn't fix her motorcycle anymore, I couldn't take her to the beach and build her fires that glowed blue from the salt, I couldn't sweep her up in my arms and kiss the hair on the top of her head. But I could kill someone for her. It was the last card I had left.

I bent my shoulders lower and pushed harder off each step, dragging huge gouges into the ground. _A bear? _the rangers would wonder as they stood over the marks, scratching their head, _Maybe a mountain lion? What do you think, Phil? _But it was just me, freakish supernatural werewolf Jacob. Just me passing through Utah at eleven o'clock at night with the mountains climbing up beside me and the stars pricking the sky above me. Trying to outrun the moon.

ALICE

I knew there wasn't much of a chance I could fool him forever. Edward was _smart_, smarter than most of us. Smarter than me and Rosalie, smarter than Emmett and Esme. Maybe tied with Jasper and a little less smart than Carlisle, judging from the number of times Carlisle had beat him at poker, mind-reading gift notwithstanding. In fact, Carlisle was one of the only people who would agree to play games with Edward anymore—I think he enjoyed the challenge, manipulating his thoughts to trick Edward, to lead him into traps. It certainly added a new dimension to the game, I can tell you that from personal experience.

I suppose that was what I was trying to do now—to outthink him, to throw myself through these mental gymnastics in order to give Jasper whatever time I could. But I'd known he would figure it out eventually, he had to. All I was doing was creating false futures, constructing them in my thoughts just like they looked when I really got visions. I had not, for example, gotten a vision of Jasper heading east toward Baton Rouge, but I'd thought about it anyway, in careful thought patterns that Edward would take for visions. He would see them and think, oh, that's a vision, but he'd be wrong. He'd follow my red herrings for as long as I could make him.

I made it all the way to the Everglades before he caught on. I hopped unhurriedly from cypress to cypress as the muggy, watery air buzzed with bugs around me. That was one good thing about being a vampire, I mused—no mosquito alive could get through _our _skin. And I had to admit, the Everglades were much nicer for their absence—I'd only passed through once before, as a human, and the difference was noticeable. I was free to look down around at the impossible dark greens of the trees, pick out the telltale ridges of alligator backs. It was so _wild _here, in a way that Americans usually didn't allow—a half-feral jungle full of explosive life, all twisted together between trees.

I heard him before I saw him—the faint splash of his footsteps in the knee-deep water. He obviously wasn't using the over-and-around method I had used—he was storming straight through, alligator backs disappearing underwater as he passed. _Interesting. _I hadn't been sure they would make a go for us, but the answer seemed to be no. Most natural life reacted to us like that—like it knew we had no part on this Earth, made from pure evil and spite. They reacted with a mixture of fear and disgust, victims of some plague they were afraid they might catch. Reason number one why we'd never gotten a dog.

Before I knew it he was in the tree beside me, climbed halfway up with his feet planted against its trunk, one arm looped over a branch. "Clever, Alice," he said. "Very clever."

I wasn't sure how to read his expression—it was back to blackboard blank. Considerably more in control than when I'd seen him last, which had to be a good sign, right? "Thank you," I offered, watching him carefully for a reaction.

"Obviously he isn't here. You've been making up fake visions, haven't you?"

"Yeah." The cat was out of the bag anyway, might as well admit how very clever I _had _been. "Thought I had you fooled."

"You can't keep yourself from thinking about him forever," he said reasonably.

"Yes I can," I lied.

"No, you can't. He's your husband. So guess what?" he let go of the branch and landed easily in the water—a frog jumped away from his feet as he landed, as surprised to see him as I had been.

"What?" I asked dully. I'd hoped this would have worked for longer. Once Edward _really _got on Jasper's trail, I wasn't sure how else I could stop him.

"I'm going to stick around until you _do _have a vision about him. A _real _one." He was so frightening these days—controlled, like he used to be, but so _cold_—like he still wasn't sure whether he was alive or not. Whether he should be. "I can tell the difference now, Alice."

"So let me get this straight," I said, jumping down beside him. The water came up to my knees, and I came up to his chest. I wished I was more intimidating. "I get to hang out with _you_ until you can figure out how to kill my husband?"

"Yeah, that's about it."

"I don't think so," I said. And I ran.

My feet found land as I ran through the swamp, pushing myself off the occasional solid surface and propelling me through the thick undergrowth, dead leaves and fish bones swirling behind me as I ran. There was a flash of white in my peripheral vision, white through the cypress trees. I looked over and saw Edward running beside me, shin-high in water and effortlessly fluid, head turned with his eyes on me. I growled low under my breath, and I ran harder.


	10. Chapter 10

VIDA

"Stop doing that," Raj said.

"Doing what?" I asked innocently. I knew I wasn't fooling him, but I was trying to stall so I could think of a good excuse.

"_Watching _him," my brother hissed as we passed Jasper in the hallway, dividing his glares equally between me and my new infatuation. "_Looking _at him like that—I can tell what you're thinking, Vida, I know that look."

True enough, but I hoped he didn't know _exactly _what I was thinking—one look at the new guy and my thoughts went straight to the gutter. "What can I say?" I shrugged. "It's not _my _fault he's sexy."

Raj turned his head to send another glare at the back of Jasper's head, and I sighed. Silly men and their silly need for dominance. If there were no women in the world, I'm convinced they would spend their lives slugging it out with each other, twenty-four hours a day. That's just the way anger goes for men, physical and violent with immediate results. Women are different—we slink and sideslip, underhanded, under cover. We think it all through, study our opponents and find ways to make them hurt. Love or war, didn't matter—all that mattered was coming out on top.

Personally, I was glad I had a project again, if only it was attempted seduction. Huarez and his Mexico City vampires had backed off a lot lately, and I was _bored. _I had been itching for something new to take apart.

Raj's anger rumbled low in his throat, feeling a little betrayed. "Oh, don't worry," I told him sardonically. "Just because I think he's pretty doesn't mean I won't help you out. Loving him, killing him—really all the same thing. I'm not picky."

That got a smile from him, the kind of secret conspiratorial smile we'd shared since we were kids, the one that said _let's go do something mean, just because we can. _Now that I thought about it, we'd always been well-suited for vampire life—there was a lot of natural darkness in us. Not so good for life as a human, but in this life, it was an asset.

"Thanks for the support," he said wryly. "Just don't screw me up with your fluttery little crush feelings, all right?"

"No promises," I said, just to bother him.

"I'll kill you too if you get in my way," he warned threateningly.

I was somewhat less than threatened. "Whatever. You'd miss me when I was dead," I said airily.

"No I wouldn't."

"Yes you would."

"Yeah, well. Maybe just a little."

JASPER

The house was bigger than I had thought—three stories and dozens of rooms, all cleanly whitewashed and sparse, the color of the walls turned to grey from the blackout curtains. I was taking a self-guided tour, getting a feel for my new home. I could live here, I decided. Even more important, Alice would probably approve of the place, too. It was a little plain for her taste, but the lines were clean and understated, classy. She wouldn't mind it at all.

Alice was always my underlying thought as I walked through the various rooms—would she like this? What would she think of that? Could I convince her to stay here in Mexico with this blood-crazed vampire culture, the backstabbing and betrayal, the blood dried brown on the hardwood floors? I loved her too much to ask that of her—she was too good for this place. But I wanted her with me. I wanted to always be close enough that I could reach out and touch her. It was a problem that I couldn't seem to resolve—almost like the torn feelings I'd had earlier with Maria, wanting two different things with exactly the same intensity.

I found the newborn bunkroom by the noise coming out of it, snarls and snaps, loud Spanish obscenities. I sent a wave of calm out in front of me as I opened the door. It was the biggest room in the house—probably took up three quarters of the bottom floor. There were a few hammocks and bunk beds, but of course they never slept. What they did instead was fight—it was so familiar, seeing them circling around each other, latching onto each other and biting, using their instinctual weapons. I'd seen a lot of newborns before, but their ferocity was always surprising, every time you saw it, their wide-eyed feral energy. Most vampires go around pretending that we're human, clinging to our last bits of our humanity with pathetic copycat desperation—we act like humans even though we know we are monsters. The newborns were the purest of us all—sheer monstrous savagery, no apologies, no pretense. It was only when they got older that they started trying to hide it.

I was three steps into the room before any of them noticed I was there—then suddenly, the head of the nearest newborn snapped around, snarling at me. The realization rippled through the group and they all turned, one by one, watching me with quivering intensity. They saw my scars and the way I stood and recognized me as dangerous—a newcomer and a powerful one. They waited to see what I would do.

"Hello," I said, in the calm command voice I was pleased to discover I still had. I hoped all my other skills were still intact—it had been awhile. "My name is Jasper Hale. You'll be seeing a lot of me from now on."

Maria hadn't specifically assigned me to training newborns yet, but it was only a matter of time before she did, and I'd figured I should get a head start. Get a feel for the dynamic here, learn to recognize faces that I would need to know later. Maria would put me over the newborns—I was one of the best trainers in the world, maybe _the _best with the benefit of my ability. This was where I had been before, and this was what I had come back to.

I watched their eyes to see how much they understood—early newborns sometimes couldn't understand language at all, not for a week or two. Nature traded them strength for the ability to know what to do with it. These vampires looked to be older than that, and I saw understanding in their liquid red eyes. Understanding and defiance—obviously they were used to someone else, and they didn't like the change.

"Where is Raj?" one of the vampires closest to me asked, angry, challenging.

"Raj will still be here sometimes," I improvised. Of course it had to be him—the one who actively wanted to kill me. "But you'd better get used me. I was watching you fight as I came in, boys, and let me tell you that you _need _me. If this is the kind of shape you're in, I am shocked that any of you are still alive. Things are going to change around here, you can bet on that."

The vampires looked unsure, threatened—they were bunching together, shielding themselves behind their fellow newborns. They didn't seem to know what to make of me.

Behind me, the door swung open with unnecessary force, making me jump back a step to avoid being hit. Vida glided through in a dark gold, looking stunning in that cold, sterile way that vampires do. The kind of beauty that made you want to jump up and paint a picture of her, right on the spot—capturable and immortal beauty, inspirational beauty. I recognized in passing that she did indeed look beautiful, but her black hair still reminded me of Alice, and any woman I compared to Alice was automatically going to lose.

"_Jasper._" Her inflection was different than I'd heard it, strangely affectionate. Her eyes were warm and mischievous, and I wasn't sure which bothered me more. "We've been looking for you."

Raj came through the door after her, cradling the limp form of a girl in his arms, human, unconscious. I could feel the emotion of the room spike immediately, a sudden frenzied bloodlust surging from the newborns. I was about to tell him _no, you idiot, what are you doing bringing a human in here? _but Raj was already moving as the newborns inched forward, saying, "We thought you might be hungry after your long day. Have a bite to eat." He sliced a fingernail down the girl's neck, opening a long bloody wound, and then pushed her at me.

I caught her instinctively, holding her as I heard the howl of the newborns with blood hitting their senses, jumping in and slamming into me from three sides. I pulled the girl tighter against my chest as I went to my knees, driven from my feet and trying to stay curled around her, curling in to protect my _own _life as newborn after newborn barreled into me.

"A little help here?" I yelled to Raj and Vida, but they were standing back by the doorway with their arms crossed, unmoving.

One vampire got his teeth into my shoulder, biting down for just a few seconds before I kicked him back, rolling through the hole where he'd been. Another newborn sprang up in his place and I kicked him, too, my arms occupied with protecting the girl as I rolled myself under the bed, shoving the girl behind me against the wall.

I pulled myself back as far as I could, but arms were still reaching for me, getting fistfuls of my shirt and hair as they tried to drag me out from under the bed. My hands were slick from the girl's blood, but I hung onto the bedframe and kept myself there as they yanked at me, testing my endurance. Seeing how long I could hang on until I died.

Raj and Vida watched me from the doorway, and Vida looked amused.


	11. Chapter 11

JASPER

This was getting ridiculous. Who did I think I was, Superman?

Seriously, what was with this new desire to save humans right and left? It wasn't like I was even very good at it—the girl in the alley yesterday had probably turned vampire by now, there'd been venom in her blood by the time I got to her. And the girl Raj had brought to the newborn bunkroom—I turned at the sound of her scream, just in time to see her being dragged out from under the bed, grabbing a last split-second hold on my ankle before she was yanked free, her blood spattering to the ground behind me.

_Stop _worrying _about her, _I berated myself as I rolled back into her position against the wall, the farthest I could get from grasping newborn hands. _She was dead anyway, you know she was bait and nothing else. They brought her in here to kill you, so how about you concentrate on not getting killed? _

My defensive strategy wasn't working all that well—they had me pinned, and I knew newborns, they could go _forever _if you let them really get into it. But the girl was out of the picture now, and they were only still attacking me out of sheer, crazed momentum—if I could get them distracted for even a few seconds, chances were I could calm them down. On the other hand, that meant doing something a little more than hiding under the bed.

I rolled quickly over onto my stomach and then pushed myself to my knees, shoulders smashing into the bedframe hard enough to flip it sideways, away from me, crashing on top of half a dozen vampires. They milled for a moment in confusion, making those eerie, glassy newborn screams of surprise and bloodlust, and I took the moment to drag the overturned frame around me, a flimsy first defense against their mindless strength. They hardly seemed to notice it, leaping over and around, but it narrowed their attack so they could only come two and three at a time—and two and three, I could take. I grabbed the first newborn by the neck as he came over the frame and threw him back at the rest of them, knocking them left and right like bowling pins.

There was a flash of black and sudden movement beside me, and I turned to take on the next newborn, but instead it was Vida, with her hair lashing across her neck and face as she landed lightly beside me. _Well, an enemy's an enemy, _I thought philosophically, and made a move toward her.

She ignored me. In fact, as the newborns poured in, she focused her attentions on _them _instead, slashing out at them, driving them back. "I thought you were trying to kill me!" I yelled at her, half-breathless as a vampire slammed into my back, wrapping an arm around my neck.

"Yeah, I was!" she agreed, unbothered.

"Well then—" I grabbed the vampire's arm and flipped him over my shoulder, slamming him into the back wall "—what the hell?"

"Got bored," she said, sweeping down like a harpy to bite into a newborn's arm. "This is more exciting."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know it was _excitement _you wanted!" I stood still for a split second, long enough to lash out a wave of fear, dread, lethargy—the newborns fell back at once, whimpering like animals, leaving the field clear for a few seconds. Just me standing across from Vida, _mad _that I was here and _mad _that she'd put me in this situation. Mad at the smile that just touched the corners of her mouth, amused, mocking. "Well, come on then!"

The newborns didn't seem terribly inclined to join back in—now that their momentum was broken, they were more interested in licking the last drops of blood off the ground, fighting each other for the blood soaking their clothes. _Good job on saving that one, Superman, _I reminded myself harshly as I glanced to the remains of the human girl. _Next time, just stick to what you know. _Like this, for example. This was very familiar—circling around another vampire with my eyes not breaking from hers, watching for the first flicker of motion.

I'd been keeping an eye out for Raj, but he was nowhere to be seen, and that made me nervous. Vida was a game-player, a cat-and-mouse type. She had a cruelty to her fighting style that would be easy to exploit. Raj looked like he meant business—there would be none of the feinting, none of the back-and-forth that his sister was showing. He would go straight for the throat, end it quickly one way or the other.

The newborns were forming a half-circle around us, not interfering, thank God, but watching intently. I knew that if either of us started looking weak, they would be on us in a flash, the hyena mentality of the takedown even when there was no blood in it for them. I didn't plan to be the one showing weakness, though—I broke eye contact with her, looking quickly to the side so that her eyes followed mine, and then I jumped.

I hit her while she was still looking, tackling her back with enough force that her shoulders crushed dents into the wall, burying my teeth in her neck. Her wrists twisted around, her long fingers wrapping around me, and a sudden shock of pain burst out from them, making me jerk away instantly as I tried to break contact with her, remembering her hands and what they could do.

I was almost limping as I pulled away from her, nerve endings on fire, and I sent a wave of fear at her as I fell back, keeping her away until I could recover. "Oh, we're doing it that way, are we?" I snapped, pouring fear into her mind, shutting it down with paralyzing terror. "Good to know."

"It's called using your resources," she replied with difficulty, shaking slightly as I twisted her emotions, trying to push herself to attack again. "What were you expecting, a clean fight?"

She pounced at me and I jumped aside—as long as I could keep her from getting her hands on me, I would be fine. The jump brought me dangerously close to the circled newborns, and one snapped at my hand as I passed, barely missing. "I know, naive, right? I guess I've forgotten how to play dirty." I switched tactics and mixed a sense of defeat in with the fear, hoping to bring her to a standstill.

Her hand froze midair as she reached for me, pulling back slightly. "Oh, don't worry," she said through her teeth, as she closed her eyes and brought her shoulders up and forced her hand those last few inches. "You're a natural."

Pain flash-flooded through my veins, eating me alive from the inside out, and I tried to find her to shove her away but it was blinding me, burning my vision back to yellow stripes as her other hand curled around the back of my neck, white lightning where it touched. I couldn't see her face but I could picture her smile perfectly—a small half-curve, superior, amused.

"_Vida._"

At the sound of Maria's voice Vida's hands came away, the pain cutting off instantly at the source. My shoulders hit the wall behind me and I slid down it part way, trying to find balance, some kind of normalcy. My body wasn't used to being attacked like that—wasn't used to pain. I'd been battered, bitten, thrown, hit, but when you were a vampire, you felt things in terms of force and not pain. Nothing got under your skin.

Vida was standing in front of me, looking entirely unashamed, though I could see the remains of the fear I'd given her in the lines on her face. I looked past her to Maria, standing like a Queen in the doorway with Raj shadowing her shoulder, quietly expressionless. "Thank you," Maria said dryly. "I know you're suffering from a little cabin fever these days, but really, try to be more responsible with my military assets, would you?"

I winced at her phrasing. _How sweet. _How could Raj feel threatened by me when she kept throwing out statements like that? Even that kiss had held nothing of affection in it, just sheer, searching possessiveness. Still, I hoped he never found out about the kiss—I doubted he would understand. Looking at me over her shoulder now, he seemed disappointed—no doubt he'd hoped I would be dead by the time he conveniently showed up to tell Maria about the newborn riot.

"And you, my darling soldiers," Maria said, turning her gaze on the newborns, scathing. They cowered under her gaze, the same vicious animals who had been foaming at the mouth just moments ago, practically on their hands and knees before her. I wonder if that was how I looked, when I was around her. Maria often made dignity a difficult proposition. "_Really._"

She left it at that, scorching the word against their collective consciousness, making a sweeping turn to go. She signaled to Vida and I as she left, holding one hand crisply up behind her, and we fell quietly in behind her. As Vida passed me, she brushed two fingers against my arm, lighting up nerve endings where they touched—I snarled and jumped away from her, angry and unnerved. I was getting that feeling again from her, the odd, bright emotion, but this time I recognized it—lust.

_Lust? _I yelled to myself. _Great. Fantastic. Lust. Alice, where ARE you? _If she didn't come within three or four days, I might even have to leave Monterrey. There was no other place where I would have as secure a position, as good of a chance at fighting Edward off, but this was just too much. Maria with her magnetism and her sprawling empire, Raj with his jealousy, Vida with her lust. _Lust, _I grumbled to myself. _Really. This is ridiculous. _

Maria was waiting for us at the end of the hallway, standing out on a balcony with her hands wrapped around the rail and her face to the sky. She wasn't looking out—not at the city with its shingled roofs and clotheslines—she was looking up. The moon hit her face on the left side and struck her cheekbones silver, her cheeks hollowed with shadow beneath them. She didn't turn to look at us as we fell in beside her—she closed her eyes so that the moonlight run down her eyelids and onto her face like tears.

"Impressive first day, Jasper," she said calmly as I came to stand behind her.

True. Not exactly the impression I had been hoping to make. "Perhaps you should remind your officers that bringing a live human into a newborn barracks isn't the best idea." Raj scowled darkly behind her, no doubt disappointed that I was alive to rat him out.

"Relax," she smiled, turning at last. "No need to start passing the blame. It's really not as much of a disaster as you might think—these newborns have been past their prime for nearly three weeks. I've been reluctant to get rid of them because it's difficult for Raj and Vida to train them." I watched Raj bristle again—he really needed to stop taking things so personally. Maria didn't like that in her men. Vida's reaction was wrong, too, though, lounging casually on the balcony rail as if she really couldn't care less. Maybe that's why Maria had kept them around for so long—they cancelled each other out, in a way, the two extremes. "Now that I have _you _back, though," she said with great satisfaction, "it shouldn't be a problem."

I didn't like where this was going. Refreshing the army had always been far and away my least favorite part of my years in the South—so many people to kill, so many last moments that I would never entirely be able to forget. It was what had driven me into such deep depression before, the part that had nearly killed me every time. "So there's your first task, Jasper," Maria continued, oblivious to my mounting horror. "Kill these newborns and make me a new army. I'll give you—oh, about three days or so. I'm not in a hurry."

Kill thirty vampires. Tear them slowly, methodically apart and catch every moment of their pain, their panic, feel them in my head as they died.

It was hard to look Maria in the eyes and disagree with her, so I looked past her, above her—up at the moon where it floated exactly over her head. I took a deep breath and told her no.

Her eyes got blacker, pupils dilating; her mouth went tight and pulled back from her teeth in a silent snarl. "_What?_"

It was easier to say the second time. "I said no," I repeated steadily. "I'm not going to do it."


	12. Chapter 12

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry so short this time, just filling in all the pieces

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry so short this time, just filling in all the pieces. Next one will be longer, I swear. Anyway, continuing thanks for the lovely, lovely reviews—really, if I could give everyone who reviewed a hug, I totally would. So yeah, the next person who hugs you? Pretend that's me.

--

ALICE

I'd realized two things in the last day, as Edward and I raced across the country, Florida to Maryland and then west. The first thing was that I hadn't traveled enough.

I know, weird, right? After all, I'd been alive for more than a hundred years, so there was really no good excuse for not having seen the Washington Monument, the Colorado River. Of course I wasn't exactly seeing them now—I blazed past them with Edward right behind me, two immortals chasing each other down, impossible tall tales in motion. I felt that I changed the landscape as I touched it, my footsteps cracking open canyons, cutting rivers where I passed.

The second thing that I realized was that I couldn't stop Edward. He was elemental right alongside me, a golden blurred line in my peripheral vision, herding me, shadowing me. I kept running—I could run forever—I could fill my mind with the Grand Canyon and Mount Rushmore, keep my mind away from Jasper for as long as I could. But that was all I could do. I couldn't stop him. Rosalie and Emmett and I, we were all very good, but Edward and Jasper had always been on another level—when we sparred it was always Edward and Jasper, Edward and Jasper off to the side and then the rest of us.

I could throw myself in front of Jasper if I wanted, but it would do very little good. I couldn't stop him physically—none of us could, not even Jasper with Edward's edge of devastating loss. So now I had to start thinking strategy—if force couldn't stop him, then what could? Who could break his rolling volcanic momentum, grab him by the chin and look him in the eyes and make him _listen, _just for a few moments? There had to be a way to stop the way he was now, this heat-seeking-missile state he was in. There had to be someone who could save Jasper, even if it wasn't me.

Somewhere halfway through Nevada, I looked back and he wasn't there—the familiar comet trail had disappeared. I cut speed immediately—it never occurred to me that I could have lost him. He was too good to lose, and that meant that something had happened. I hoped it hadn't—there had been a thought—

Sure enough, there he was as I stopped, appearing squarely in my way with his arms crossed. He looked—not happy, but grimly satisfied. "Monterrey," he said. "Monterrey, Mexico."

"_No._" It had been only the tiniest flash of a vision, smashed between the futures of Vegas and Reno, he couldn't possibly have seen it.

"Go home, Alice. You did all you could. This is between me and Jasper now."

"What do you mean it's between you, he's my _husband!_" I screamed myself hoarse at him, terrified at the sudden removal of the very last thing I could do.

"He killed Bella," Edward said flatly.

"And you realize that if you kill him, you're putting me in the exact same position as you are now. I've done _nothing._"

He was entirely unaffected, his expression not giving an inch to sympathy or reason. "I'm sorry, Alice." He turned away from me and ran south.

"_Edward!_" I screamed after him, but his stride didn't even break, and he was disappearing fast.

I turned the other direction and sprinted north, faster even than I'd run from Edward. Back north, back to Oregon. Back to Carlisle. If anyone could stop Edward it would be Carlisle, the surrogate father, the father figure, who he respected and idolized, the one person now who could say stop and maybe get a reaction. Could I get there fast enough, there and back? Would Carlisle even come? Would Edward even listen? It didn't matter, because I was out of options. All I could do now was run.

I ran faster than I had before, tucking my head into my chest, my mind flashing futures of Jasper and Edward, golden against the blue Southern sky. I closed my eyes against them and ran faster still. My footsteps cutting rivers where I passed.

JACOB

I was relieved when the leech's trail finally straightened out. I had been starting to think I was on some kind of a wild goose chase. I mean, the Everglades? Really? What could he possibly be doing in the Everglades, saving the spotted owls?

The trail was headed back south again, though, and it was hotter—I was closer with every hour, closing the gap, patterning my own outsize wolf-prints between his wide-spaced human sneaker treads. There was only so far he could run. If I had to chase him down the tip of South America and into the ocean, fine, whatever. Anger was good fuel, and I wasn't going to be running low anytime soon.

I crossed into Texas at midnight, almost exactly. My grandma used to call it the witching hour, and I guess she would know. Anyway, it looked like she was right—there was a vampire and a werewolf within state lines tonight, that was about as witchy as it got. If I got my way, only one of us would be leaving the state alive.

And by "one of us", I meant me.

Just to clarify.


	13. Chapter 13

JASPER

"I'm not going to do it."

"Excuse me?" Maria's eyes were sulfurous black slits, two spots of color burning high in her cheeks.

She wasn't used to hearing 'no', and she didn't react well to it. In a woman less threatening it would have been called a tantrum. She reminded me again of those Southern belles, her chin coming high and her delicate hands balling into fists at her side. Vivien Leigh in _Gone With the Wind_­—one of Alice's favorite movies, I'd seen it a million times—flaming up over some slight, that spoiled spectacular temper.

But in Scarlett, the anger had always been ineffective, adorably tempestuous. Maria's anger was instantly terrifying, overpowering. Her hand lashed out and grabbed the collar of my shirt, dragging me closer like a schoolyard bully, blazing up at me from her five feet seven inches. Silly to be frightened of this woman with doe eyes and a waist you could wrap your hands around, but she _made _you frightened anyway.

"What did you say?" she hissed.

"I said—" I choked. "I said I'm not—" Unbelievable. I couldn't get the words out.

My tongue was suddenly leaden, my will eroding under the sudden onslaught of her own. _Damn_ her. Damn the way she could do that, suddenly make herself the magnetic pole of your life, make you orient yourself to her. It was a sickening feeling to watch your independence wither and die under her gaze.

"You know I can feel it when I kill them," I found myself explaining. "I can feel them dying."

"Well, you've certainly gotten soft, haven't you?" she said, disgusted. "Looks like you came back to me just in time, Jasper."

"Yes, ma'am." The words left an aftertaste in my mouth, my disgust at myself mirroring her own. How had I done this before? I remembered fighting through it, learning ways to work through her magnetic gift. How had I controlled it enough to leave her in the first place? I couldn't remember.

She let go of my shirt, smoothing the fabric where she had dug her fingers into it. "Now," she said complacently, "you _will _do this for me, won't you, Jasper? Tell me you will."

_I shouldn't have stayed, _was all I could think, feeling her will press down on mine. What had this talent been in life—charisma? A particularly strong personal magnetism? Whoever had made her a vampire had not done the world any favors. _I shouldn't have stayed. _"Yes, ma'am," I was saying again. "I'll make you an army."

RAJ

Maria sent Jasper and Vida away to start culling the newborns, and it was just us standing on the balcony. I stood across from her, leaned against the rail with both of my hands wrapped around it behind me, watching her watch me. I didn't move toward her—I never made the first move, I'd always gotten the impression that wouldn't be…_allowed. _She didn't turn, but she held her arm out to me, very white and very straight; a moonbeam. She had the longest fingers I had ever seen, and a silver ring on her thumb with no gemstone, just wrapped silver in layers.

In life, I'd been the son of a Mexican drug lord, my days headlined with neon lights and drive-by shootings. We were rich enough for beautiful things, but we never had them. We thought we had the best of everything but we were coarse—our tastes were low and our standards lower. I grew up thinking that beauty meant stud earrings, sleek black cars, the long legs of a cocktail waitress. I don't believe I saw one truly beautiful thing until the day I saw Maria.

I slid my arms around her waist, the black sleeves of my shirt contrasting perfectly against her white skin, her white dress. She pulled my head sharply down into a kiss, twisting in my grip until she faced me. It unnerved me when she kissed me like this—like she was trying to find something out. When she pulled back, her eyes were pensive and sharp, and I knew she'd found whatever she was looking for.

"You hate him." Not a question, a statement.

"Yes," I agreed simply. "I hate him."

"That's good," she decided. "A little bit of healthy rivalry never hurt anyone."

"Is he a rival?" I tried to keep the jealousy out of my voice. Being with Maria was an unimaginable prize, but like anything that good it had its price. You had to know what you were getting into—the games you would have to play. Still, she was worth it.

"I don't know," she teased, digging. "He _is _blond. Women are helpless against blonds."

I growled low in my throat, swallowing the louder snarl that threatened to burst out. I couldn't help it. She had me on strings and no mistake, pulling for exact reactions every time.

"Calm down," she laughed, kissing my neck. "I love you, remember? Even if you _aren't _blond." She sighed thoughtfully. "Maybe you could work on that." I tensed and she pulled me closer, laughing. "Still joking, Raj. Try working on the sense of humor instead."

It was hard to have a sense of humor where Maria was involved. When you held something so spectacular, it was easy to believe that someone might try to take it from you. If you saw a person walking down the sidewalk with a fist-sized diamond, right out there in their hand, you would expect someone try to take it, wouldn't you? So I held her very close and watched for interlopers—if anyone even _touched _her I would be there.

She looked straight at me and smiled like staring into the sun, and I couldn't look away. Then as I watched her, her gaze slid sideways, drifting away from my face—and there was that feeling of panic again, holding the diamond to my chest. I was afraid of the same thing I had been afraid of since the day she climbed in the window of my father's house and sat on the edge of my bed—that I couldn't hold her interest.

"I want to be alone," she said suddenly, all the teasing gone out of her voice.

I withdrew quickly, fading into the shadow, of course not wanting to let go of her but not daring to stay. I walked blindly, not sure where I was going—far enough that she couldn't look past me with those distant black eyes, forgetting I was there.

I turned away and left her standing there with the moon exactly over her head.

JASPER

I stood on the roof with my hands in my pockets and watched the bodies burn.

Vida put the pieces of the last newborn on the smoking pile, like logs on a hearthfire, neatly stacking them with her skirt bunched in one hand, holding it away from the flames. The smoke plumed straight up in a gray column against the dark predawn sky. It didn't irritate my lungs as I breathed it in, didn't make me cough or catch my breath, but I still felt it—in my mouth, in the airways of my chest, I felt it clouding there. I felt myself blackening and rotting, there in my chest where I'd always imagined my soul would be.

Carlisle had always told us that we still had souls—that we were good despite our natures, that we were redeemable. But I knew that we could only be redeemed if we were worth redeeming.

I had killed seventeen newborns tonight—perhaps not quite human, but living things. I was not good.

I had tried to be. I did good things sometimes, but I was not good inside. Not the way that Carlisle was, not the way that Alice and Esme and Emmett were, good that came from the center of them and made them want the right things. That was the difference—they were good people fighting to stay good. I was a bad person fighting to be good. I was black inside and getting blacker. Blackening from the smoke of thirty-one bodies burning.

"Oh look," Vida's voice cut through my downspiraling thoughts, bringing to focus that somehow she'd gotten _very _close without my noticing. "We seem to be alone."

"If you don't count the thirty-one burning corpses," I said coming stiffly out of self-reflection. I took a step back, getting some space between us. Now that I'd identified the emotion rolling off her, it was easy to recognize.

She took a step forward. "Doesn't bother me. I think it adds to the ambiance, don't you?"

I started to take another step back, but my foot hit the edge of the roof—good strategic move on her part, I should have been paying more attention. "You do know I'm married, right?" I said bluntly as she reached toward me, brushing my neck with her fingertips.

"Oh, come on," she said sardonically, and her fingers trailed down to my chest until I swatted them away, annoyed. "I'm not exactly asking for commitment here. You know what I want."

"You sound lame," I informed her, "and desperate."

"Desperate is just another word for determined," she said, and moved forward to kiss me.

I somehow found another three inches to jerk backward, grabbing her wrists. "I really don't know how else to say this," I said warningly. "I. Am. Not. Interested."

Her breath hissed between her teeth and her eyes slitted, sudden jilted anger. Her hands pushed through my grip and landed flat on my chest, shocking out pain where she touched. Surprise and hurt made me jump back, losing my balance on the edge, but her hands were there again, pulling me back toward her, pulling me head down as she kissed me.

I shoved her _hard_, sending her stumbling back into the edge of the bonfire so that she had to snatch her skirts away, stomping out a flame at her hem. "I f you kiss me I again," I told her, as forcefully as I knew how, "I will kill you. Do you understand? I'll kill you."

She was smiling again. Unbelievable. This girl needed to get a hobby to distract her from screwing with the world. "Big mistake," she said. "See, now you've made it sound like a challenge."

I threw my hands up, glaring at the smoke-hazed stars. "Do they have therapy for vampires?" I wondered aloud.

"I could suggest a few methods—"

"Shut up," I snapped. I was not having a good night—on top of selling my soul down the river, now I had to deal with Vida's raging libido, and it was _not _helping my temper. "I really can't make this any clearer. This is not a joke. This is not a come-on. Touch me and I'll rip your head off." I got quickly to the stairs before she could respond. I didn't _want _to hear what she would come up with.

At the bottom of the stairs, I could see the balcony straight across from me in the hall. Maria turned as I hit the floor like a figure in a music box, beautiful and delicate, rhythmically mesmerizing. She smiled at me.

I shook my head and walked away.


	14. Chapter 14

JACOB

In some ways, it was kind of like trying to run with a broken leg.

That was the way she felt to me, a Bella-shaped hole ripped clean through my heart. I needed surgery, I needed emergency medical attention. She seemed to have taken some pretty important bits of me with her when she left.

Was that what love was? Cosigning on this huge future happiness with another person, and then being left to pay the debt when they were gone? I was trying not to think about the nevers of it—never see her again, never sit on the sidewalk and lick melted chocolates from their wrappers with her, never tell her how dumb she was for hanging out with vampires. It was the most absolute thing that I'd ever come up against in my life. I felt like a fly colliding over and over with the same window, bouncing off it again and again, but what was I supposed to do? What other direction did I have? I couldn't stop pulling up memories of her, snapshot after snapshot scrapbooking her life. I couldn't stop wondering how she had died.

The pack kept telling me that revenge was a bad idea, but I disagreed. It was a _goal. _It kept me moving forward, counteracted the crippling joint-freezing guilt and grief. If I wasn't running I would be curled up in a corner somewhere, choking on the dead aftertaste of love.

I passed Houston very wide—it was morning now, no reason to go running through the center of the city as a horse-size wolf. Just past the city was the first time I caught sight of Edward, the top of his head over full-grown wheat stalks, the ripple in the field where he passed. I moved behind him and sped up, a growl ripping from my throat as my predator instincts kicked in. He didn't turn—didn't even react as I closed on him, just kept running his easy lope through the field, dazzling golden through the golden stalks. He was obviously unconcerned about secrecy anymore, vampire in the wheat, but infuriatingly enough he sort of blended—camouflaged like a lion in tall grass. I looked so monstrous in comparison, black against the landscape.

My anger surged up as I closed the gap, more furious the closer I got until I felt I would burst to ash, sift down onto the wheatstalks like a cremation. I lowered my head and all my anger collected into a point, lasered right between his shoulderblades as I hit him. This is your fault. Bella is dead and I've run for a thousand miles to make sure you pay for it.

I probably should have attacked him with my teeth, tearing into that stone skin of his, but it felt good just to slam into him as hard as I could. It was a pretty good-sized field but he must have gone through half of it, snapping stalks with his body. I expected him to hit the ground like a cat and come back at me, but he just—stayed there, crumpled on the ground. My wolf-body quivered with the tension of it, waiting on the enemy, but he just pushed himself up on his hands and knees and—_stayed_. No more movement.

_It's a trick, _my instincts were screaming, _it has to be a trick. _I pushed off again and pounced back at him, expecting that his shoulders would square and his hands would come up, but they didn't. It was only after my last step that his head started lifting, and his eyes were so—destroyed. They shocked me—probably would have stopped me if they could, but I was already hitting him. I sank my teeth into his shoulder and threw him another fifty feet, farther for my frustration and for the strange sudden panic I felt from looking him in the eye.

I found him at the end of the second swath of broken, snapped stalks, circled around him like a halo. He was on his hands and knees with his head down again, looking so sacrificial. Fury boiled over the top of me—what was he _doing, _why wasn't he fighting _back_? Did he think he could make me feel _sorry _for him, that I would pat his head and make excuses for him like Bella had? I stood at a distance and snarled at him, throated barks at him, half-frantic with the whole situation. I was a wolf and a human both, and still none of my instincts knew what to do here. I could kill him—it would be easy—but God, it would be cold-blooded.

_Get up, _I thought furiously, I knew he would hear me. _Get _up, _what the hell do you think you're playing at? You think I won't kill you? _

Again I was expecting big movements, the liquid fast-motion vampire motions I was used to. Instead he pushed himself up onto his knees, slowly, arthritically stiffly. There were ragged holes in his shirt where I'd bitten him, holes in his skin like puncture marks, unbleeding. His eyes got to mine before I could look away.

Vampires didn't generally look like they were walking dead people—they looked pretty and vibrant and glowing with life, you couldn't _tell. _But I looked at Edward's eyes and they were _dead, _just flat dead. The kind of dead that makes people close the eyes of corpses, because of that uncomfortable, hollowed-out stare. He looked like he _knew _he was dead.

His eyes provoked all this incongruous pity and shame in me, which converted almost instantly to anger as I blazed at myself for pitying him and at him for _looking _like that, he had no _right. _Blood pumping to my head again and I was moving, slamming my shoulder into him but not as hard as I should, skidding him back a few feet and fighting with the impulse to snap my teeth into his neck. _What is your _problem? I snarled at him. _Do you _want _to die? _

His eyes caught mine again and suddenly I knew the answer to that question. Yes, he wanted to die. Yes, he wanted me to bite into him at the base of his spine and rip out his thoughts and feelings, wanted me to deaden him outside to match his inside. Yes he wanted to die.

No. I wasn't taking that from him. I wasn't taking his regrets and I was _not _going to be his suicide. He didn't deserve this, he hadn't earned it. _Are you _kidding _me? _I snapped at him. _You're just want me to kill you, just like that? You think you deserve that, after you killed Bella? _

That got the first real reaction out of him that I'd seen—his head snapped up, his eyebrows pulling down in confusion. "I didn't—" His voice sounded a little uneven coming out at first, unused. "I didn't…kill her."

If his voice had sounded defensive or angry, I would have killed him right there. But it was weird, he sounded almost—surprised, almost unsure of what I meant. I stayed back and gave in to a little confusion of my own. _What do you mean you didn't kill her? _

"I mean I didn't kill her." _Now _he sounded a little angry, as if offended that I would even suspect it of him. Yeah, right. "Who told you I killed her?"

_Well, _I said, suddenly scrambling for proof, _it's not like it's a hard conclusion to get to. _

"I didn't," he said bluntly—not happy about it, just fact, she was dead either way. He was getting to his feet, wheat kernels falling off him as he rose.

_They said there were marks in her neck, _I threw at him, finally remembering what I was doing here.

"That's because Jasper killed her."

I blinked at him. _Jasper? _I tried to get the name to connect to something in my memories—whose face did I need to move the target sign to, now that it was moving off Edward? Strangely enough, I did believe him. I'd always known that he would do everything he could to protect her, it was just that I'd never believed it would be enough. I knew he had loved her—I'd seen the way he looked at her, it was sickening. He wouldn't have killed her if there was any way in the world I could help it. Now seriously—who the hell was Jasper?

"My brother," Edward explained. "Tall, blond hair? Lots of scars?"

_Oh, _I said unhappily, finally pulling up a picture. That, I could believe. The pack had always been edgy about that one, moving around him with care not to turn our backs. We'd always felt that he was dangerous, and I guess now we had our proof. _Well then what are you doing here?_

"Same thing I suspect you're doing here." He was a little more in control now, restoring a little of that cool careful tone. "Someone killed her, and I was going to kill them."

I hated it that I understood him so well—I felt myself connecting to him, perhaps the only other person in the world right now who was feeling the same things I was. In a lot of ways we were the same, at least when it came to Bella. That was why we'd been such enemies—because we filled the same slot in her life, and there was only room for one of us. But now, with her gone…

_Oh, _I said. My plans were shifting quickly around this new knowledge, unthreading and stitching back together in different patterns. My anger was running down a different path now, toward a different end goal. _Well…can I come with you? _

He looked surprised and then unsurprised in quick succession—it was so very logical that it had come to this. This was the only way we'd ever come together in the past—for Bella. To protect her, and now to deal with the fact that we'd failed to protect her. "Um," he said. "I guess."

I broke into a trot, switching him with my tail as I passed. _Come on then, _I said. _We've got some ground to make up. _


	15. Chapter 15

JASPER

Daylight filtered in through the gaps in the curtains, casting parallel lines on the floorboards like bars. Couldn't be more appropriate, really, because for another nine hours, there was nowhere for me to go.

God, I hated the sun. Hard to forget what you were when sunlight was there reminding you, bouncing off your skin and not absorbing, not being allowed into you. To be forced indoors for twelve hours a day, every day—it was just the claustrophobia again, the feeling of having no way out. When I was with the family it hadn't seemed so bad—arm-wrestle Emmett a few times, play poker with Esme, and of course Alice could always find ways to keep me entertained. Here, it was different. I was boxed into a building with three people who I considered enemies, all of whom would probably try to kill me if they got bored enough. I was pacing holes in the floor.

I needed to get out of Monterrey. That had become very clear to me over the last few hours. This was the key to dealing with Maria, I'd finally remembered—just not being around her. The longer I went without seeing her, the clearer my thoughts became. Why was I still here again? Um, really no good reason. Because I was getting siren-songed by a devious, grasping Mexican territorial who was trying to break me and distort me and use me up to the dregs. I remembered how this game went. And I remembered what came next.

I had folded so easily to her demands last night—I'd killed her newborns for her. So what. They were monsters—they were dangerous, slavering animals and they needed to be put down. Really, I had done the world a favor on that one. But I remembered what came next. Making a new army. It had never been important to me before that that meant killing people.

I couldn't do it, I absolutely should _not _do that. Killing just one girl in the last few days had nearly put me over the edge—killing thirty people would send me over for good. The threshold was just so low for me—I knew exactly what I could and couldn't handle. The way I was feeling now, chances were that just one more taste of blood would hook me forever.

_So what, _a part of me was saying, the part that remembered exactly what human blood tasted like down to the last detail. The part that had the memory of Bella's blood framed in my head the way you would a memory of Christmas morning or winning a million dollars. _Maybe you're just weak. Maybe there's no helping it. Maybe some people are just destined to always have their calendar at zero. _

But that couldn't be right. As often as I thought it, I couldn't ever quite swallow the idea that I was weak. Karma, destiny, predestination, I'd never bought into any of that. I was a firm patron of the I-am-the-captain-of-my-ship school of thought. And when it really came down to it, I was just too damn proud to give in, not when there was any impossible tiny sliver of something I could do. I couldn't control myself? Then I would go find an island in the middle of the ocean with no one for a hundred miles and live in a hut made out of bamboo. I would wall myself into a cell in the Himalayas and become a monk. I couldn't say no to Maria? Then I would leave.

Problem was, I had to make it another nine hours. Till the sun went down and it was dark enough that I'd have time to run, because you could bet she'd chase me. She'd even sent people after me the first time I'd left, it had taken me three years to get rid of them all. Again it wasn't affection—wasn't that she was particularly hurt that I left. It was just a matter of possession—of not being able to let go of anything she put her hands on. I would need the head start. The instant twilight touched the ninety-degree desert ground, I was out of here. I loved Monterrey, but it was no good for me.

Plus, I missed Alice.

That might sound lame and needy, but it was true. I missed her so it was almost physical, like I was a board with a hole cut out and she was the circle peg. There were just—spaces. Places where she had been and wasn't anymore. I still sometimes reached for her hand even though she was hundreds of miles away, just out of the habit and the expectation that she would be there. I couldn't think of a time in the last fifty years that I'd been away from her for more than a full day.

I'd picked a good-sized corner room, facing south so that the sun hit the windows crossways, striking straight across the glass. The house was nearly empty now, just me and Raj and Vida, and of course Maria. Ashes of thirty-one newborns on the roof, half blown away. The house was so empty that it echoed. So I shouldn't have been surprised when Vida came looking for me—what else was she going to do with twelve hours of sunlight? There weren't even any newborns to harass.

She wasn't standing in my doorway to either kill or seduce me, though, which _was _a surprise. "Maria wants to see you."

"Ah," I said dryly. "I'm being summoned." But I didn't take a step—she still hadn't moved from the door, and there was no way I was getting close enough to get by her.

"Well," she said, amused at my hesitation, "aren't you going to go?"

"Absolutely. As soon as you move."

She gave me a smile and crossed her arms, leaning against the side of the door as if to say, make me. Another standoff with Vida. Awesome. She was just an absolute ball of joy.

I sighed loudly and shoved my hands in my pockets. In a way, I was lucky that time had frozen for me in a young adult body—it meant that if I ever wanted to act like a teenager, I could get away with it. I cast around in my mind for the first emotion I could think of—anything in high enough volume would get her out of my way. The first thing I caught hold of was the memory of Edward in the moments after Bella had died.

I threw the emotion at Vida with a certain amount of spite—if I had to feel this kind of loss tearing into me every time I remembered it, it was time someone else knew what I'd been feeling. She reacted with a physical recoil, a small noise of pain escaping her as she fell back. I slid through the door past her and moved down the hall, hoping she wasn't in the mood to make a fight out of it. She was still leaning against the wall, bent over ninety degrees like a sprinter after a race, trying to catch her breath. I didn't blame her—it was the worst loss I'd ever felt, bar none.

I knocked twice on Maria's door, left shuffling my feet uncomfortably as I waited on her. This was not what I had wanted—I hadn't wanted to see her today, but to be honest it would have been unlikely. I would just have to be careful, keep a check on any feelings of crawling subservience I might start having. Maybe if I didn't look her in the eyes? "Come in," she called, her voice muffled through the door.

A brief thought of running in the other direction, but I pushed the door open and found her there, wearing red so bright it made me catch my breath a little as I saw her. Mexico tended toward those warm fire colors, red yellow orange, because of the way they looked against the light dust browns of the earth. Today she looked like Mexico herself with the red red dress and her hair cinnamon on her shoulders—there was spice in the way she looked today, and character, a change from the innocent-angel image she usually went for. Raj stood behind her, bristling tensely, a dog waiting for the order to attack. I kept my eyes away from him—who knew what he would take as a threat, these days.

"Jasper," she said, as warmly as if I were her best friend come back from a long absence. "How are you this morning?"

The honest answer was not exactly something I wanted to share at the moment, so I went with a lie. "Um," I said unconvincingly. "Fine." Lying had never really been my strong suit.

She didn't seem to notice. "How did it go yesterday with the newborns?"

Extremely not fine. Devastating to my self-image and my ideas of morality. "Fine," I said.

I was lucky she was so self-absorbed—she barely seemed to hear my answer, breezing past to her own interests. "I wanted to talk to you about my new army. I assume you'll be going out tonight to start building it up, and I had a few things I wanted to tell you first. There's a family of ranchers outside the city that I've had my eye on, there are at least three or four good candidates for turning, and they have—Jasper, are you listening?"

Just my luck, that she'd happen to notice _now_—that something was wrong, that things maybe weren't going to go the way she thought. And of course I was a little slow coming up with an answer, only managing to get out a "Yeah. Yes, I'm listening. Yes ma'am," after a few awkward seconds of silence.

"Jasper." The friendly warm voice was gone now, replaced by curiosity and irritation. "What is going on?"

_Well, ma'am, I'm not actually planning on making you an army, ma'am. That's just not going to work for me. But sure, give me all the tips you want. I'm listening. _"Nothing," I said with a more successful attempt at an even, innocent tone.

She wasn't buying it. "_Tell me what's going on._"

And this was what I had been looking to avoid—the force of her will, the overwhelming press of it. Before I could think about it the truth was popping loose, completely involuntarily. "I can't kill people."

Whatever she had been expecting to hear, it wasn't this. I didn't blame her. The Jasper she'd known a hundred years ago had been up to his elbows in blood at any given moment. Things had changed. "You _what?_"

Really, it would probably be a good idea to stop talking now, but it felt good to say out loud—to defy her, to explain the parts of me that were not ruled by her. "I don't kill humans anymore. I haven't for a hundred years." Give or take a few bad days.

Vida slid in the side door, apparently recovered from my earlier attack. She had no idea what she was getting into here, this was a conversation of a lifetime. I doubted there had been anything close to this in vampire history—I'm sure it would be a funny story to tell Alice one day on the off chance that I got out of here alive.

"You don't kill humans?" Maria echoed incredulously, and I saw Vida's eyebrows jump up to her hairline. "_Why?_"

"I guess I just—want to be good." Simplistic but true—my entire life encapsulated in a sentence. "I don't _like _to kill people—I signed off that a long time ago and I've never regretted it."

"He's not joking, is he?" Vida chimed in from the side, sounding more amused than I'd ever heard her, on the brink of hysterical laughter. "You're not joking, are you?"

"Definitely not." Well, there it was—it was all out in the open now, and I wasn't sure how I was going to get myself out of this one. I didn't care—I wouldn't be drinking any blood in Mexico, and it was time they knew it. Time to stop being weak and just tell them flat no.

"Want me to take care of this?" Raj said easily—he was the only one in the room who was actually taking this revelation with active happiness. Suddenly I was so much less of a threat to him.

Maria was frozen, collected fury, sitting very still across from me with her lips drawn so tightly they were white to match her face. This was wildly out of her control and her expectations, and she did not like it. She was _mad—_her dress gathering around her feet like flames, her hands fisted in it hard enough to tear into the fabric with her fingernails. "Vida," she said tautly, ignoring Raj at her side.

I was confused for a moment as Vida zipped toward me—Vida, what was Vida going to do, hurt me to death? But as her hands pushed flat on my skin I remembered my first day here, the remembered unfamiliar blackness of unconsciousness as it spread out from my chest and swallowed me.


	16. Chapter 16

JASPER

Memo to self: when dealing with vampires, honesty is not necessarily the best policy.

The problem was, I didn't really have the silver tongue that some of my siblings had—I couldn't smile like Rosalie and dazzle you, couldn't string out lies a million miles an hour like Edward could. Maria had asked and I'd told her, simple as that. Possibly it would have been a better idea to just shut up. That plan about getting out of Monterrey tonight? Yeah, that might be a little more difficult now. Because when I woke up from Vida's knockout, I was back in the box, metal surrounding me on four sides. And I wasn't alone.

The small containment room was barely big enough for one person—I remembered the first time I'd been in it, not being able to stand up, barely being able to breathe. Now there was another person in the room with me, their knees pushed up against my legs—and it was a human.

She was a skinny, shoeless Mexican girl with eyes half as big as her face, getting wider as I woke up and started moving against her, breathing in the smell of her blood. Maybe fifteen, sixteen years old and probably not getting any older, not if Maria had anything to say about it. And it was _working_—I was already pressing myself back against the wall, trying to keep my thoughts away from her neck and wrists. This was low. I had to admit it was smart, but oh, it was mean and it was _low. _If she wanted to break my resistance down, I couldn't think of a better way. How long could I hold out against the temptation, an hour? Fifteen minutes? I sucked my breath in and held it, moving my legs away so that they were just barely not touching hers.

"No me lastime," she was whispering with all her words running together, I could hardly understand her. I could hardly hear her with the sound of her blood pumping in my ears. "Mi dios, no me lastima, no me lastima. No sé conseguí aquí, yo no sé donde estoy."

_Do something, _I was telling myself, already shaking with the effort of staying just barely in control. Still hanging onto myself. Still hanging in there. _You're not weak, _I repeated to myself._ You're not weak, you're not weak. _Do _something. Distract yourself. _

I balled my hands into fists and dropped them in my lap, leaning my head back against the wall so that I wasn't looking at her. At the blue lines of her veins running down her arms and gathering under the transparent pale skin of her hands. "It's going to be okay," I told her, talking just to calm myself, like my words were some incantation that could save us both. "What's your name?"

She looked at me with those giant deer eyes and I realized my mistake. "¿Cuál es su nombre?" I asked in Spanish, trying to make my voice quieter, less threatening. Less like a monster who was going to reach over any second and take a bite out of her neck.

"Marta," she said shakily. We were both going to pieces, two people in a hurricane trying to hang onto whatever we could get our hands on. Trying to keep our legs from brushing in the five-foot-square room.

"Marta." I repeated her name like therapy—part of my spell. If there were vampires and werewolves in the world that had to say something for the possibilities of magic, right? There had to be something impossible here that could save us, some perfect word I could say. "Marta, it's going to be okay. Vamos a conseguir con esto. ¿Vamos a conseguir con esto, todo a la derecha?" _It's going to be okay. We're going to get through this. We are going to get through this, you understand? _

She started crying quietly in her corner of the room, her body moving with every sob so that her knees bumped me, the heat of her striking into me where she touched. I bit my lip and dropped my head, covering my mouth and nose with my hand. _You're not weak. You are not weak. We are going to get through this. We're going to get through this. _

JACOB

I really hoped that Edward spoke Spanish, because I really, really didn't.

I'd taken it in high school, you know, in those sad excuse for language classes they make you take where you sit in the back of the class and play paper football with your friends. I think I still remembered how to say "My name is Jacob Black" and "Which direction is the library?", but that was pretty much going to be it. Edward had been through high school, what, twelve, thirteen times? There was no way he hadn't picked up more than that.

Of course, we weren't exactly planning on sightseeing. We blew through the border and the first dozen cities without so much as a scenic detour, running side by side in the light of the half-horizoned sun. I'll admit it, we got competitive—we were boys, we couldn't help it, it was genetic. He would pull ahead of me a few feet and suddenly I would have the desperate need to catch up to him, to pass him with a speed burst of my own, which of course would make _him _run faster and—you get the idea. It was probably actually a good thing—made us both faster, pushed us harder. We raced down the flat cowboy landscape with a speed I doubt this sky had ever seen.

"Fifty miles," Edward yelled across to me as we started to see the specks of another city ahead of us. "He's in Monterrey—you see it?"

_I see it, _I sent back at him, picking up the pace a little to catch his new lead. _Can you hear him? What's he doing? _

"Not sure," Edward yelled, his voice barely audible in the wind-crush of our speed. "It's all—really weird. Weird thoughts. I know where he is, though, I can find it."

_Works for me. Monterrey it is. _

I slid my eyes sideways at Edward, streaking so fast beside me that all his lines were blurred, running together like watercolor. I was pretty sure this was going to be over fast—I just didn't see how Jasper could hold up against our combined anger, against the lack of Bella and the fact that it was his fault. I wondered what Edward was going to do after it was over. I'd seen him suicidal in the wheat field, and I'd heard Bella's stories about how he'd tried to kill himself with those Italian vampires in the few hours he thought she was dead. I was pretty sure that after we killed Jasper, Edward was going to want to die. I couldn't help thinking that that wasn't right.

We slowed as we started to reach the city—now that we were both acting slightly less crazy, it was more important to us that we not be seen. We had to go in there human, playing our parts—and that, actually, presented kind of a problem. _Um, Edward? _

He turned as he slowed to a jog, looking expectantly over to me. "Yeah, what is it?"

_I…need some clothes. _

"Oh yeah," Edward said dryly. "There's that whole…naked thing. You must have really run off in a hurry, Jacob."

_Oh yeah, like you didn't. Just be glad _you_ don't have to deal with the naked thing, okay? It's really pretty annoying. _

"So, what, you want me to get you some clothes?"

_I would appreciate it. _

"No problem," Edward said, as I tucked myself away at the bottom of a small clay cliff. Hopefully no one would be out this far from the city tonight, or they would be finding a lot more than coyotes and tumbleweed. "Give me half an hour."

He brushed the dust off his jacket and walked toward the city, looking human but more spectacular—no one would notice him except to stare at his beauty. Excellent camouflage for a predator. And now I was remembering again who I was out hunting with, who my wingman was on this particular mission. My tail twitched reflexively and a low growl rumbled in my throat. I couldn't trust him. I couldn't ever forget what he was. It would be easy to do but I couldn't let myself do it.

_Hey Edward! _I called after him, and he turned gracefully, paused like a statue with the vaguest mica glitter from the final rays of the sun.

"Yes?"

I wasn't sure what to say now that I had his attention. I don't trust you, I think you're a monster? I don't think you'll be able to control yourself?

_You'll come back, right? _

He smiled and kept walking, assured of himself in the ways that I wasn't. "Don't worry, Jacob," he called over his shoulder. "I'll come back."


	17. Chapter 17

VIDA

Raj and I had been quietly taking bets about how long Jasper would last. Of course there was no way for us to really know—when we opened the door, we'd just know that he'd either killed the girl or he hadn't. If he hadn't, I don't know if even Maria could do anything with him. He was really something else. Completely insane, obviously, but in an adorable sort of way.

When we finally got to open the door, of course I insisted Raj let me do it—wouldn't miss it for the world. And from the first instant we saw him, we knew that we had won. He had his knees pulled up to his chest and his arm across his face like he was trying to block light from his eyes, and everything was just—_red. _There was blood up the side of his arm, spattered all the way to the shoulder, and blood on the walls behind him and blood in his hair. So much blood that it looked like he was bleeding, but vampires didn't bleed. It was all from the body in the other corner.

Is it wrong that it kind of turned me on? Or does it matter if it did? I'm a vampire, and that means I am entitled to all sorts of evil impulses. I have an excuse. "So," I said, "you ready to play ball?"

He moved for the first time, lifting his head to look up at me, and his eyes were absolutely pitch black.

JASPER

I had thought that giving in to my nature would make me feel better. I had thought that it was one of those inevitable things, that when I finally gave up and let the impossible load roll off my shoulders that I would feel a sense of relief. Maybe even serenity. That I would finally feel better.

I didn't. It was easier but still guilty, still a full awareness of what I had done and the wrongness of it. I had expected that it would feel less lonely, and surprise—it didn't. These people were not my friends, and just because I had given in to them didn't suddenly make us family. I had just confirmed what they'd been so confident of—that they could push me around, make me into exactly what they wanted. They were still vultures and I had let myself become prey.

I wanted to take a long, hot shower—I wanted to stand under the water for hours and let it wash the blood off me, swirling light red runoff at the drain. I wanted to scrub my hands and my face with bleach and feel it burn the blood off me. I couldn't do any of that—I had to stand here in front of Maria and let the blood dry into the fabric of my shirt, because she owned me now and she knew it.

I'd never seen her _smirk _before, but there was no other word for it—it seemed somehow a little cheap for her, a little petty. I would have expected it from Vida, but not from her. "Feel better?" she asked me.

What, could she read my thoughts too? Or did she believe the same thing that I had—that this was the cure for what ailed me, just the taste of blood needed to make me a real vampire again. Well, nothing had changed—I hadn't magically turned back into the Jasper that she used to know. Too many things had happened to me in the last hundred years—I'd _tried_ to be good, I'd known Carlisle, I'd been in love with Alice. I actually knew the difference between right and wrong now, and apparently it wasn't something that just went away.

"Not really," I said. "No." I wasn't hungry anymore. And I hated myself. Pretty much that was it.

"You _look _better," she commented. "Healthier."

I wasn't exactly sure how to respond to that. I was pretty sure she wasn't hitting on me—it was more casual than that, like a person looking a horse in the mouth to check its teeth. "Um. Thank you."

"So, about my army," she said complacently, already moving on. As far as she knew, things had worked out exactly as she had planned. This was something she did often—when people weren't the way she wanted them to be, she worked on them until they were. I wouldn't have thought that such a strong-willed woman would want to surround herself with people so broken, but then I'd never understood Maria at all. "I feel extremely uneasy about sitting here in the middle of my city with no newborns—I hope you know what a sacrifice this has been for me."

She was staring at me reproachfully, waiting for me to respond. What did she want from me? She had to know that she'd won—I'd snapped, I'd given in, she was the winner here. What else did she expect me to do? "I'm sorry," I said, half a question as I tried to work out the smallest corner of her twisted mind.

"Can I trust you to go out tonight?" she asked with a tone like a mother to a child. "How are your weird moral qualms today, dear?"

"In complete shambles, thank you very much." She wanted me to go out in the city. Even in the state I was in, maybe I could make myself get away from here. I wasn't sure where I would go, now that I'd reverted back to being a monster, but—if I could just get out of the city—

She caught my chin and pulled me face-to-face with her, her glance sweeping me as if she suspected my sudden rebellious thoughts. "No," she mused. "I don't think you're ready to be out there alone." My rebellion died a quick death, crashing and burning in flames. "I'll come with you."

"You'll—what?" _No, no, no, no, no! _

She was already pulling away from me, sweeping her hair into a businesslike knot at the back of her neck. I couldn't remember the last time Maria had actively participated in the creation of an army—she was the queen bee, not the worker. She didn't _do _things, she just stood around and regally commanded other people to do things. At this point, though, she was more interested in her current project of destroying my life than she was in her army, by a long shot. "I'll come with you," she repeated blithely. "It's been awhile since I've done this. It'll be fun."

"Yeah," I said, slightly dazed. Was there a limit to the number of bad things that could happen to a person in a single day? Surely I had to be getting close. "Fun."

EDWARD

I really hadn't intended to break my promise. I doubted Jacob would believe that, but I really had intended to go into Monterrey, find him some clothes, and then come back for him. It only made sense, strength in numbers and all that. I was fully aware of what a valuable ally Jacob Black could be.

But that was before I heard Jasper's thoughts when he killed a girl.

It just seemed so horribly familiar, so easily applicable to my own loss, to listen to him drink the blood of a girl and feel all her death in vivid emotions. Had Bella felt this kind of blinding terror? Had she been in this much pain? I was turning toward him before I knew it, my anger suddenly as bright as the moment she died and the desire to kill him becoming suddenly a overwhelming need.

Jacob would understand. Or he wouldn't. Didn't matter, I didn't care. Jasper had already killed my Bella and now he was killing someone else's. Not acceptable. I dropped Jacob's jeans on the ground and headed for the center of the city.


	18. Chapter 18

VIDA

Raj had always been jealous of the whole nerve-ending thing. I had to agree, it was a pretty spectacular consolation prize for joining the ranks of the undead, but hey. It wasn't my fault I'd had a talent for hurting people when I'd been alive. It was just natural. If he'd wanted to get something good like that on the other side of death, then he should have been a little more vicious when he was alive. That was the problem with humans—they had so many _rules. _What's worse, most people thought they have to follow them.

As it was, Raj had ended up with nothing more than a slightly better-than-average sense of hearing and smell. Pretty sad compared to me, but there were certainly times when it came in handy. For example, when we stood at the window in our moonwashed white house, watching Maria slip away through the city with Jasper, moving fluidly zigzag like lightning, and my brother's head snapped suddenly around, listening.

"Someone's coming," he said.

He darted down the hallway toward the open balcony, and I'd been in this situation often enough to know to follow him instantly without burning up time for questions. He was right. He always was, and we had the millisecond's advantage that we needed as an unknown vampire vaulted up onto the balcony and straight into our hands.

Raj caught the attacker before he landed and spun him with the momentum of his jump, slamming him back into the wall hard enough to knock the stucco loose. I got a quick good look at him—young, cute, bronze-haired—before he wrapped his hands around Raj's wrists and used the grip to lever his feet up between them and kick out, breaking Raj's hold and shoving him back into the rail.

Clever. There was something familiar about his fighting style, but I wasn't going to sit around and try to figure out. I had things to do—like appear suddenly behind him and put my hands on his back, make him yell in sudden surprised pain and fold to his knees, brain and body trying to make sense of the pain coming out of nowhere, crippling him. Forget fighting style—for me it was always a smash and grab job, the convenient inelegance of being the most powerful person in the room. Oh, you're the best fighter in the entire known universe? That's nice. Just wait till I get my hands on you.

I had been working on the specifics of paralysis, but I hadn't quite gotten there yet. As it was, lighting the nerve endings on fire could get me a good couple seconds of immobility, and I just had to keep following up. I planted a boot on the vampire's shoulder and shoved him over on his back, pinning him to the floor with my hands on his shoulders to shock him again with enough pain that he wouldn't give me any trouble.

Raj was back from the balcony rail, kneeling in front of us to get his hands on either side of the kid's face, holding his head. Partially this was a habit that had carried over from my brother's human life, holding horse's heads to control them, calm them, and partially it was just good strategy. Vampires were annoyingly tricky to kill, but tearing their head off was always a good start. Even if you were immortal, you couldn't do much with headless.

"Hi," I said, leaving my hands in place in case he felt like doing something stupid. "I'm Vida, and this is Raj. You haven't had much time to get to know us yet, but here's a helpful tip—we don't like intruders."

His eyes blazed up at me, and I realized with a shock that they were golden just like Jasper's had been. Really, how many of these weirdo vegetarian vampires _were _there? His shoulders twisted under my hands and I sent a warning shot of pain fissuring through him, making him catch his breath short. "Let's start with the basics," I said. "What's your name?"

"Edward," he answered immediately, his tone clear and irritated. Strange, but he didn't seem afraid of me—had this angry, shattered feel to him that I was struggling to put my finger on, a way of looking at me like he had nothing to lose.

"Edward," I repeated firmly, determined to stay in control of the situation. "What are you doing here, Edward? Did Huarez send you?"

His expression went slightly unfocused, as if he were listening to music that Raj and I couldn't hear. "Jasper's gone," he said, anger and despair. "Where is he going?"

"Watch it, sugar, I'm asking the—" I started automatically, then stopped as his words processed through. "Wait a second—how do you know Jasper?"

"He's my brother." See, most people didn't just answer these kinds of questions—I usually had to drag it out of them between screams of pain. But Edward—Edward just didn't care. "And I'm going to kill him."

"Hey," Raj said, surprised. "I think I like this guy."

"Shut up, Raj," I snapped. This was the most fascinating thing I had come across in a good ten years, and I was not going to let him wreck it. "Why do you want to kill him?"

"None of your damn business." Apparently that was where the candor ended. "It's a personal matter."

"Fair enough."

"So," he said, "want to help me, or what?"

I really don't think he liked us very much, but he was a smart kid. He knew he wasn't getting away from us on his own, and I had seen him pick up on Raj's antagonism toward Jasper. He was going to play his cards as they'd been dealt.

"Sure," I said easily, pushing myself off of him. "Sounds like fun." As silly of a reason that might sound, it was an important consideration for vampires. When you were immortal being living for hundreds of years, fun was about all you had left.

"He's out hunting with Maria right now," Raj said, offering Edward a hand up—suddenly very friendly now that he'd found a Vice President for the I Hate Jasper club. "Believe me, you don't want to get Maria involved, but we can help you pin him down once he gets back. Want to stick around?"

"Can't," Edward said. "I left something outside of town. I have to go back for it. Can I meet you in an hour or so?"

"Sounds perfect," I said smoothly. "We'll meet you here on the balcony and show you where his room is, help you box him in and all that."

"That would be very helpful," he said, then paused. "This is working out…considerably easier than I had thought."

"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Edward," I warned. Because, you know—then it might bite you, or something. "Get out of here. We'll see you soon."

Raj came to stand beside me, his profile matching mine, same nose same jaw. Made similar by genetics and made perfect by vampire venom. I watched Edward land gracefully on the ground and disappear behind the sharp corners of houses; Raj watched me; looking at me out of the sides of his eyes.

"So," he said. "Are you really going to help him?"

"I don't know." I felt light with caprice, the whole future of tonight turning on the fulcrum of my whims. I was a silver-tongued Shakespearean fey, I was an eight-legged trickster god. The choices were laid out before me like a feast for a Queen, silver-plattered, and even I didn't know what I would choose. I could ruin people's lives tonight, I could point and strike people dead like an Olympian deity—the only question was where to point.

I turned back to Raj and smiled. "Maybe."


	19. Chapter 19

JACOB

When Edward finally showed up again, I gave him my best wolf glare, trying to convey the doubt and frustration of hiding behind sagebrush counting seconds, wondering in exactly what way you'd been betrayed.

_That was definitely not half an hour, Cullen. _

"Sorry," Edward said, as he slid down to me at the bottom of the cliff. "Something came up."

_Oh yeah? _I growled. _Explain. _Or I'll rip your throat out, you filthy backstabbing bloodsucker—but that part was implied.

"We seem to have a couple of unexpected allies," he said. "Jasper's landed himself in the middle of Mexican land politics, and what with things being the way they are here, he's made a few enemies. They're interested in getting rid of him for reasons of their own."

_What, you don't think we can do it? _

"Things are—complicated here, Jacob. There's a reason I've only been to Mexico twice in my life. This situation breaks the wrong way here, and we could be dealing with some serious consequences."

I blinked at him. Politics had never been my strong subject. _Why? _

Edward gave me a look—the look that people gave me sometimes when they remembered I was only sixteen. "Never mind. Just trust me that working with these guys is going to be to our advantage. We need to move fast, though—I don't entirely trust them, and I don't want to give them time to think this over. Are you with me?"

I gave him a werewolf smile, my tongue hanging out of the side of my mouth. _Do you even have to ask? _

To be perfectly honest, I _was _having second thoughts. I mean, I'd killed people before, sure, but it was sort of different. They had always been trying to kill me first. This calculated murder stuff—I don't know. It was bothering me.

I bounded to the top of the cliff in two long strides, landing fourpawed next to him as ran up the side. _Hey, Edward. _Again, not really sure what I was going to say. He seemed to have that effect on me—I guess I hadn't had much practice. Communication between vampires and werewolves was usually limited to "Die, fiend", "No, YOU die", and "Grrr. Bark, bark".

"Yeah?" He started at a jog but was quickly catching me, zero to sixty in a second flat.

_Um…You sure you still want to do this? _

"Of course," he said too quickly, looking ahead and not at my eyes. "Why wouldn't I?"

_I don't know. Because he's your brother?_

"Doesn't matter," he said sharply. "He killed Bella, remember?"

_Yeah. I just don't think Bella would—_

Hmm. Tricky. I had no idea what Bella would want. But my murderous anger had somewhat lost its edge over the last few days as Bella had come to the forefront of my mind, thinking less about her death and a little more about her life—the way she'd been, goofy and sweet and soft. I just couldn't get the idea of cold-blooded revenge to fit in with that.

"You don't think Bella would what?" Edward challenged, again just a little quick, a little too defensive.

_Never mind. _It sounded dumb when I said it out loud. Someone had killed the girl I loved and I didn't want to kill him? Well, of course I wanted to kill him. He deserved to die.

Right?

JASPER

It seemed strange to me now that I used to be so in love with Maria. And I was, don't get me wrong—I was head-over-heels stupid with it, absolutely enthralled. Maybe it was just new perspective from being in love with Alice, but looking back on it seemed like such a bizarre kind of love. Half snake-charmed half obsessed. It had kept me in Mexico a very long time, but that wasn't what was keeping me here now.

It was different this time. I was not dazzled. The spots had faded from my eyes a good long while ago, and now it was just—sheer force. There was no subtlety to Maria's hold on me now, just the crushing press of her will. My eyes were completely clear but my mouth still wouldn't tell her no. I felt trapped in a clear glass box, watching myself do things that I didn't want to do, hitting the walls with my fists and yelling, but it was all so ineffectual. In some ways, I would almost rather have stayed dazzled.

Of course, I couldn't push it all off on Maria. It was still me behind the actions—I'd even thought once or twice that maybe I was using her as an excuse to do things I knew I shouldn't. I'd told her flat-out tonight, halfway through the hunt when my head was filling up with dead people and I couldn't stand it anymore, that I was leaving and I wasn't coming back, but she'd just raised her head from drinking a man's blood and smiled, and pushed him at me. Blood ribboning down his neck and it was far too much for me. She had to stop me before I drank him dry. Who was I kidding. She'd hooked me the with the blood, and with the way she looked up at me with the irises of her eyes covered by the reflection of the moon.

I had thought that 'trapped' meant a small metal room too small to stand up in, but I had a different point of reference now. Trapped meant being perfectly free to go, if only you could just make your _legs _move, if you could just convince yourself that you didn't want the bright hot blood like a body shot from a person's neck, that you didn't need it the way you used to need to breathe. Trapped meant sitting on the edge of the bed with your head in your hands, running options on a loop in your head. _Okay, there has to be a way to get out of this. How do I get out of this. How do I get out of this. _

I heard the door open across the room but I didn't look up—only three people it could be, and I hated all of them. Then there was a low, throated growl, unfamiliar and unvampirelike, that told me that maybe I had been wrong. I looked up and saw a wolf standing in my door, teeth parted, half-coiled to spring. And Edward. He blazed in the doorway from his eyes to the tips of his fingers; he had always been coming to kill me.

I was surprised that they hadn't attacked yet, that they were just standing there as seconds unreeled, letting me get a good look at my death. And the strangest part was that I still did not want to die. It surged up in me and surprised me, the will to live—I wouldn't have thought I still had much of that. I was depressed and half-broken and the other half crazy, but apparently I _still_ didn't want to die.

"Edward," I said, just to pass the moment. Still looking for ways out. Ways not to be dead at the end of this. Having meant to have said it already, and fervently meaning it when I said, "I'm sorry." _I didn't mean to do it I couldn't stop it it's been _killing _me. I'm sorry that I am weak and I that it hurt you that I'm weak. I'm sorry that I killed your Bella. _

My words snapped something in him, crunching his stillness into violence—a snarl ripped from his throat and he jumped at me, shoulders thrown back, head snapped back in the seconds before he hit me. Eyes like a whole city burning.


	20. Chapter 20

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Fair warning—the next update will take a little longer than usual. There's a huge climax-type scene coming up, and it'll need to be longer than my usual five-or-six-page-a-day average, plus this part is a semi-big deal so I want to make sure I get it right. Sorry :). I swear I won't keep y'all waiting too long. Also: your reviews. They are fantastic. Seriously, you guys are making my life extremely awesome, and you know it only makes me write faster :) :). So yes. Thank you.

--

JASPER

"Came out of nowhere" is a human expression, and an inaccurate one. It didn't mean that someone had miraculously appeared out of thin air, it just meant that wherever they'd been a second ago, you hadn't seen them. Not a testament to that person's speed but simply evidence of your own inattentiveness.

When you were a vampire, the expression took on a whole new meaning, and a whole new measure of truth. Because we _could _come from nowhere—could be literally nowhere in sight one second and on you in the next, the way we moved in tiny slivers of time with a sort of jagged force, a strikingness. So when I say that Vida came out of nowhere when she tackled Edward from the side, flipping him midair and slamming them both back into the wall—I mean exactly that. The second Edward jumped for me, she was not in the room. And then suddenly, she was, and I was not dead like I thought I might be, though I had to admit I was a little confused.

"Surprise!" Vida said brightly, tangled on top of Edward in the corner. "We totally screwed you over!"

Edward was twisting under her, trying to push his shoulders up, but I could see the spasm shocks of pain across his face that meant Vida was doing her best to keep him there. "Jacob—" he yelled across the room, but the wolf was already between Raj's crosshairs, the vampire locking his arms around Jacob's chest from behind, getting that dangerous hold for anything that had bones that could be broken.

I had no idea what was going on. For some reason Edward and Jacob had trusted the siblings to some extent, had known that they were there, but—what? My brain was still spinning from trying to comprehend Edward, here, in my room, trying to kill me and failing yet again. I knew I was lucky that things just kept getting between us, but this time I wasn't sure it was going to work out in my advantage. I moved back so that my calves pressed against the boards of the bed, trying to figure out the situation and in which ways I was now in danger.

"What happened to 'sounds like fun'?" Edward spat at Vida, still struggling to break away from her despite the pulses of pain she was sending through her hands on his chest.

"Oh, don't get me wrong, your plan sounded like fun," Vida said lightly. I'd never seen her look so thrilled, so close to true enjoyment. Whatever was going on here, I had no doubt that it was Vida's hands taking it there. "But Maria thought this sounded even better."

Maria drew our glances to her at the door, standing evenly and with perfect posture between the boards of the frame, hands pressed against them on either side of her. She was back with her white chiffon lace dresses today, looking like a postcard angel. If it was a pose, it was a beautiful one, and if she had wanted our attention, she had it. There was something about Maria being in the room that faded everything else out a little, blurred it like that moment in movies when the hero sees his true love for the very first time.

I heard Edward draw his breath in at the sight of her, and I wanted to yell _No! Don't fall for it! _but of course how could he help it? We oriented ourselves to her, orbited around her—she became the center of us just by being in the room. "My, my," she said lightly, moving into the room. "It looks like your brother really _does _want to kill you, Jasper."

"I knew that." For some reason, I couldn't get any volume into my voice, almost couldn't get words out at all. The tension of the situation froze me, leadened my bones—felt like suffocation for a person who hadn't breathed in two hundred years. "He's been…trying, for awhile now." I wanted to apologize again, tell him that I was sorry, but I'd seen how well _that _went over. He and Jacob had gone still against their captors, attention suddenly fastened on Maria with an intensity that I recognized.

"Hmm," she said, walking closer until she stopped right in front of Edward, looking down on him from her standing height. He looked up at her with wariness and fascination, silent, his neck stretched out full length from his head tipped back to see her. "That _is _a problem. How would you feel about doing something about that, Jasper?"

"Ma'am?" Really, you're not making any sense. Please explain your crazy self.

She turned away from him and got my eyes, smiling just enough to show teeth. "I mean why don't you kill him? I've trapped him here for you. Why don't you take care of the problem?"

My breathing cut out altogether.

How did she always _know? _The moment I thought I could sink no lower, she found another level. Another few feet to push me down, another shade of black to paint me. She found the things that were tempting and necessary, the easy rationalizations—there was no way I'd live unless he died, he wouldn't stop until he'd killed me so it was kill or be killed, right? I didn't want to die. I didn't want to die.

Maria held her hand out to me and I took it—she pulled me in toward her until I was standing beside them, Vida and Maria, and Edward with a very different expression on his face now. Anger and a little bit of fear. He knew me and every piece of my past—he knew how my mind worked. He knew I would do it. I could almost feel him tracking my thoughts as they frantically weighed pros and cons, trying to come up with a decision that was both good and smart, but those things were separated into different paths this time. I could be good or I could be smart. I couldn't be both.

EDWARD

He would do it. Jasper would absolutely kill me. He'd always been the smartest of us that way, the most clear-minded. Before he joined our family, we were pretty hopeless in the self-defense department, basically your run-of-the-mill vampires with instincts for smashing and running fast. Then, after he became part of our family—well, it didn't take long before we stopped worrying about how to defend ourselves. Jasper just had a way of putting things—a clarity to his style of fighting and an economy, an absolute willingness to commit. That was the way his mind worked, too, the demarcation of things. The clarity; black and white and nothing in between.

He knew I meant to kill him, and here he had a chance to eliminate the threat. Simple as that. He would do it. I'd known his mind for a hundred years, and I knew that he would do it.

I ducked my head so that he couldn't see my face and let myself wonder a little, about how it would feel to die.

JACOB

He would do it. I mean, obviously I wasn't all that close to Jasper Hale or anything, but I was pretty sure he would kill Edward so that Edward wouldn't kill him. He was that kind of person—scars all up his neck and arms. He was _dangerous. _

Since we were, after all, living just miles from a vampire coven, Sam had always made a point to run scenarios with us, planning out how it would go down if the two sides ever fought. Eleven wolves in the pack altogether, and three of us had been assigned to taking Jasper out. Not even kidding. I'd been one of them. One wolf for that huge monster Emmett, one wolf for Carlisle who's been alive four hundred years—and three for Jasper. We took him very seriously. It was just that you couldn't watch him—the way he moved, the places his eyes went first—and not get the heebie-jeebies, just a little. Guy knew what he was doing, there couldn't be any doubt of that.

And so he'd kill Edward. I believed it so fully that I could already see it, the way he would move in with that mercury vampire grace and reach his hands toward his brother. My feet scrabbled against the hardwood floor and I pushed back against the grip of the man holding me, checking for any give, anything I could do about the situation.

Because I wasn't stupid. Once they killed Edward, I was pretty much screwed.

RAJ

No way he would do it. He didn't have the guts.

Really, I don't know what Maria saw in Jasper. He was the most pathetic excuse for a vampire I'd ever met in my life—I mean, come on, what kind of vampire doesn't drink human blood? There had to be something wrong with him, something essential missing from his makeup. When he'd been created, something must have gotten messed up. Because how else did you explain a vampire with _morals, _with angsty ethical dilemmas? Just disgraceful. I'd never seen anything like it.

Well, at least after he made his decision, he'd be gone. Maria was quickly tiring of him, the way he held himself back and kept himself in locked boxes. That was no way for a vampire to behave—and I think she was starting to see that she couldn't fix him. This was just the way he was, the way he was going to be. Screwed up. Conflicted. Completely and utterly weak.

True, killing his brother would probably help him get over that. But I'd seen enough of him in the last week to know that he could never make himself do it.

Too bad. Maybe Maria would miss him after he was gone. After she killed him.

MARIA

Of course he would do it. Of course he would kill his brother. He would do it because I had told him to.

I saw the shifting looks from the rest of them, the conflict in his own eyes as he struggled to make his decision. _Really, _I thought to them. _Have a little more faith. _Some things just always worked the same way. The Earth turned. The sun came up in the morning. And when I told Jasper Hale to do something, he did it.

He was the first one to ever really belong to me—the first one that I kept, because I saw the way his eyes flashed sometimes at the back of them, the way he held his body when he wasn't moving. He was my first. I _owned _him. If this wasn't true, then nothing was. If Jasper did not obey me, then the sun might as well not come up in the morning.

VIDA

Really, I couldn't care less one way or the other. Jasper kills Edward, Jasper doesn't kill Edward. Didn't matter. Either way, this was the most entertaining thing I'd ever been a part of in my whole vampire life. And I'd made it—I'd brought us here with a flick of my hand like an orchestra conductor. I had made this happen.

Either way, I was going to be happy. Either way, people were going to die. _This _was chaos, and it was _fun. _This was what I was talking about.

I watched Jasper move in on his brother with that grace I'd admired, moving towards _me _where I had pinned Edward for him, easy kill. _Come on, babe. That's right, come on. Kill or be killed. Kill him or he will kill you. Kill him or we'll kill you. Die right here or live with yourself. Either way I've destroyed you._

_Now make your decision. _


	21. Chapter 21

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I am so sorry. Seriously, you guys, I am sorry. I'm sure y'all have figured out by now that when I said this chapter might be awhile, I didn't mean THIS long. I moved into a new apartment complex, and hey, the internet was broken. It was great. In fact, it is STILL broken, and I'm typing this at the library. Thank you for your patience, and your encouragement while I was out of commission :).

--

I had approximately ten seconds to decide whether or not to kill my brother.

"Hmm," I said.

"Hmm?" Maria echoed archly. "What do you mean, 'hmm'?"

What I meant was that I was looking at Edward with his copper-penny hair and his eyes right up to mine, terrifyingly direct. Guilt coming head-on like a train collision, twisted metal, wheels straight off the track. I had seen his eyes like this before; I had seen him looking at death before. He always looked exactly like this, unafraid and slightly rebellious, as if death were something that he could play chicken with and win. When you counted your life in centuries, death was something you got used to, a familiarity represented by dozens and different faces. Edward probably hadn't expected the next face to be mine. I could tell that he was listening hard to my thoughts, trying to puzzle me out the way he always had.

Most people got to be brothers for about fifteen years, that tiny box of time before their paths separated out into the world. Edward and I had been brothers for seventy-four years.

I wondered if he wanted to die. He had said once or twice that if Bella died, that was it for him—and in a normal family, that kind of comment would have merited a suicide watch, but we all understood. We were all halves of people, Siamese-twin interlocked with people we loved—we understood. The blankness that there would be and why he would feel that death was better. But I wondered if he still felt that way. Because I'd been there, I had been to rock bottom—I had been as low as you could be, and it kept surprising me—the will to live. Maybe more of a simple unwillingness to die. We had enough human left in us for that. You couldn't help but want it, want to keep living on the off chance that things might get better. Our instincts were still hopeful.

"Hmm," I said to Maria. "No."

She went white—the skin of her face sucking back against her bones so that she looked sharp, gouged-out. "_Excuse me?_"

There it was, the shove of her will, the weaponized magnetism that made you want to forget yourself and stare at her, kneel in front of her. I didn't know how possibly to fight it, but the stakes were crazy—impossibly high. Edward on the floor in front of me staring down death like he could just make it flinch. Me about to kill him. There was a word for it—fratricide? I didn't remember.

I felt her trying to grind into me like a person files a metal bar, slamming her anger and pique at me like an audible scream. I felt I should be knocked off my feet. I felt that she pounded a hammer and chisel against my skull, trying to break in. Could happen. Wasn't going to happen. What was that dumb idea again, close my eyes? Look away from her?

I turned my head and felt the pressure decrease dramatically, like bench-pressing too much weight and suddenly your spotter realizes it and grabs the bar. The release in your chest. Why hadn't I tried this before?

"No," I repeated clearly. "I'm not going to kill him. He's my brother, and I'm kind of attached."

She realized instantly what I was doing—I wondered if she'd known it herself, that it was in her eyes, that she needed mine. If she hadn't known then she was learning quickly—she took two long steps across the room and grabbed my chin, dragging my face to her. I reacted automatically and effectively—I closed my eyes.

A real scream this time, slicing into us as a weapon, with the pitch and tone of a temper tantrum. She threw me back into the wall and followed me as I it with a long and angry stalking step. "Raj!" she yelled as she closed on me. "Vida!"

I don't know what she expected, they kind of had their hands full. Behind her, I saw Jacob explode into motion, and Edward a few seconds behind him, a little sluggish with surprise. Good, because I was going to need all the help I could get. Somehow, I had to fight off a spitting-mad Maria for long enough to get out of here—and I had to do it without looking her in the eyes.

I rolled out of the way before she hit and she left dents in the wall with her hands, smashing them in like handprints, pivoting as she hit so that I had to slit my eyes and glance away, guessing where to lash out with my feet so that I kicked her legs out from under her, collapsing her in a tangle of white fabric. Reached for her and missed, well I couldn't be lucky all the time, and she scrambled to her knees and pressed one palm flat against my throat, crushing down hard enough to try to snap through my windpipe. My eyes came open and she caught them, stopping me for a second like a mouse staring in the eyes of a snake.

"I hate you," she was saying quietly, furiously. The change in her was shocking, the sudden flipside of her Southern belle personality, power and petulance. How hand she become this? She'd been given this power and it was too much for anyone, it had eaten her so rotten inside that she couldn't stand a single blow. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you."

Something hit her from the side, breaking her grip from my neck—a gold comet contrail—Edward. I saw Vida on the other side of the room, struggling to free herself from a half-smashed wall, and Edward was taking Maria's tackle that smashed both of them through the window and rolled the out onto the red-tiled roof. _Why? _Of all people, why did it mean that he'd done that for me?

Of course, it could have been that he just didn't want to fight Vida anymore, and I couldn't blame him for that—she came out of the wall absolutely livid, with walldust streaking her black hair like age, looking for something to take apart. I ran past Jacob and Raj on my way to her—Jacob looked like he was doing okay, teeth locked in Raj's shoulder, and as I passed Raj went suddenly straight and silent—listening.

"They're coming," he said.

It was strange but I had no time to sit and wonder about it—I collided with Vida in the middle of the room and made sure to hit her low, where she couldn't get her hands on me. We hit the wall and she let me push her further into the boards, then shoved me stumbling back with pain snapping like sunbursts where she touched. I hit the windowsill and another hand grabbed me, gripping the back of my shirt and dragging me halfway out the window. Maria—but where was Edward? I got a quick glance around the roof as I levered myself back inside, flipping her into the room with me—no Edward. She couldn't have—

No time to think about it—she was reaching for my throat again, looking for parts of me to break. "You don't say no to me," she hissed, getting a handful of my hair as I ducked around her. "I _own _you. I am—I'm—"

I grabbed her wrist and tore her grip from me, losing a handful of my hair in he hand that I was forcing away, straight-armed. "I'll tell you what you are." I hooked my foot behind her and shoved her down, folding on top of her as she collapsed. "You're a selfish, spoiled brat. You're a silly little girl who was given something to big for her, and never did learn how to handle it. You are nobody." I drove her arm straight through the wall, breaking the electrical socket where it hit and snapping wires, tangling them against her. "And you don't own me."

She didn't react—didn't look like she knew how, looked at me with big eyes and for the first time, they looked a little lost. That was the way she went out of the world—lost and puzzled, surprised to see the flame jump up her dress sleeve from the torn wires and cover her. Her hair curling, burnt at the touch of the fire and her white white skin spreading black like spilled ink. She went up in flames.

It would have been good to sit there with her ashes for a while—maybe not mourning, but at least trying to deal with the lack of her. Maria had made me, and parts of me were up in flames too, right along with her. I wondered if they were parts that I would miss. I wanted to think about it. Unfortunately, quiet reflective moments were a little rare just now.

Vida's touch was very soft on my back, like a lover. Then again, she didn't need force—I felt her under my skin at once, like she'd dug her nails into me up to the first knuckle. I never thought I'd say this, but maybe she had been playing around before. She'd hurt me but it hadn't felt like this, like fire except fire eventually burned out—like having blood and cells and bones on fire, burning black and racing up your veins, couldn't move couldn't breathe and my sight was going black at the edges, dark bruise purple spreading to black. Was she trying to kill me, _could _she kill me? I tried to move my hand but I couldn't. My vision tunneled to a pin of light and then swallowed up black. People with too much power—power in all the wrong hands. I couldn't move, I couldn't see, and she was going to kill me.

I heard a blunt _thunk, _stone on stone, and suddenly Vida's hands were away from my back, like the release of an electrical current—diverted. I was instantly boneless, crumpling to the floor and catching myself on my forearms, rolling over even though it burned to move, because I recognized the voice I heard.

"Seriously," Alice said. "Get away from my husband."

"Oh God, _this _is the reason you wouldn't sleep with me?" Vida was saying as I struggled to get to my hands and knees, shouldn't have been moving at all, but seeing Alice was motivation enough. She looked so beautiful and so angry, standing across from Vida like she had a knife in each hand. "You turned me down for Tinker Bell here?"

"What do you mean, sleep with you?" Alice yelled. "Did you try to seduce my husband? You _bitch_!" She disappeared from where she stood and tore into Vida, grabbing her hair and snapping her sideways, catfight times a thousand. Vida lashed back and they disappeared in a dervish of arms and angry eyes and black hair. Carlisle sliced behind them in a streak of diamond-dust gold, and it made me think _Edward. _

Alice could take care of herself—even as I looked over, she was grabbing Vida's wrists, _she _knew what was coming. She always knew. _Edward. _I forced myself the last few inches to my feet, and got myself painfully out on to the windowsill, down onto the shingles.

If she had killed him, where would he be? Or—the pieces of him? Yikes, I couldn't think that. But where would he be if he wasn't here, and why would he not come back?

"Hey."

I looked down and Edward was there—just standing there looking up at me where I stood on the roof. The moon was so bright off his face that it blanked his expression out, turned it to a flat glare of white. I couldn't tell if he was angry or if he was like me—tired and tense and in a lot of pain. We held our strange balcony scene, neither of us moving.

"Hey," I said lamely. "Where were you?"

"She—threw me," he said, with his voice as flat as his face, giving me nothing. "She's got a good arm."

I shuffled my feet on the roof, sending broken tiles and dust sliding off the edge of it. "Do you—are you coming up?" _Do you still want to kill me? _"Alice and Carlisle are here."

"I heard them," he said. Still didn't move. "So I guess you didn't kill me."

"Yeah. I guess I didn't."

Silence juggled between us, awkwardness here but more dangerous, a pivot of a moment. One of us had to move. So before I could think logically about it, I made myself kneel on the roof and reach my hand down to him.

I was at a different angle when I kneeled, and now I could see that the expression on his face was fear.

CARLISLE

I had to admit, I was relieved to see both my sons climb back in the window alive.

Of course I was glad that they hadn't been in the room while we wrapped things up, but honestly, who knew if they were in more danger just from each other. Neither of them appeared to be missing any limbs, though, so I tried to keep it casual.

"Hey guys."

Both so exhausted that it took them a full second to respond, their heads lifting and their eyes lighting hope when they saw me. Good. That was what a father should be. Alice broke from my side and went straight to Jasper, walking like she was magnetically pulled. He starting moving when she saw her, and they crashed together, not even kissing, just—clinging. Survivors on a life raft.

Edward wasn't looking at them, he was looking at me, and instantly I was glad I had come. He looked confused and he looked upset, and he looked half dead—if I had seen someone who looked like him in my emergency room, I would have rushed them straight through to surgery. These boys had been around so long that sometimes I forgot that their lives had ended at seventeen and twenty. That they would be seventeen and twenty forever, that even though they were smart and strong, there were parts of them that would never get any older. They were trapped here in a year of their lives, never knowing how to deal with some things exactly right. Like love. Like loss.

Edward's eyes went automatically to Raj, where he sat slumped against the wall, head in his hands. "What's he doing here?"

"Great question." Jacob said from the door, having finally found the jeans he needed in Raj's room. They were a little short, but he was still an impressive figure, teenager with the body of a thirty-year-old wrestler. It was almost a photo opportunity: Monster in Short Jeans. "I was just fighting him, right? And suddenly he just—stops. Like someone pulled out a plug. It was totally weird."

"Was it when I killed Maria?" Jasper asked, ironic and pitying.

"Yeah, I guess it was." Jacob was limping as he walked across the room—it looked like a broken leg, but I couldn't tell from here. "I definitely noticed, it smelled _terrible._"

"Sorry, I'll remember the air freshener next time." Jasper moved toward Raj, but he didn't let go of Alice's hand—I wouldn't be surprised if he never let go again. He went into a crouch beside Raj, arm stretched out to Alice behind him. "Feel better?"

"She's gone," Raj said hollowly.

"I know. That's kind of what I meant."

"I feel—" Raj said uncertainly, voice muffled through his hands. "I don't know. I feel nauseous."

"It's like withdrawal," he said understandingly, slapping Raj on the shoulder. "It'll pass. In the meantime, I suggest you get out of here."

"Vida—"

"—is in a thousand tiny pieces. She will not be coming with you. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt, buddy, because I've been here, but I still don't trust you. Get out. Run a few hundred miles. Find out what life's like without her."

Raj was used to obeying orders—he got unsteadily to his feet and sleep-walked to the door, eyes straight ahead and unfocused. I silently wished him luck as he left—he seemed like a good guy. Jasper had come out of this situation and he'd turned out fine. Maybe we would see Raj again someday.

Jasper's eyes shifted uneasily toward Edward, and I wondered what emotions he was picking up. I hoped for forgiveness, but was it too much to ask? I'd seen the death of bonded partners before—the bond was too strong not to cause serious backlash when broken. Alice still had her body positioned between them, wary and defensive—what future was she seeing now? My children all had gifts, supernatural ways to gauge. I usually just had to ask.

"Edward," I said quietly. "What are you thinking?"

"I should be able to forgive him," Edward said thickly, anger and shame. He looked at Jasper for the first time without glaring homicide, and I thought, progress. "I should be able to forgive you."

"Edward, this is hardly your fault," Jasper responded instantly—tried to step forward but Alice wouldn't let him. "It's only fair—"

"What, an eye for an eye?" Edward smiled humorlessly. "We're better than that. We should be better than that."

He turned suddenly away, a jarring quick movement. "Edward," I said sharply, using my father-voice to pull him up short. "Where are you going?"

"When I was a kid," he spoke in that same wry tone, laughter and hatred, "my dad used to send me to my room when I acted up—he would say, come back when you can behave. So I'm leaving. I'll come back when I can behave."

"Edward, you don't have to—!" Jasper protested at once.

"I don't want to kill you, Jasper," Edward cut him off. "I don't want to kill you, all right?"

No real way to argue with that. Two beats of silence, and then he said quietly. "All right."

Edward walked quickly toward the door, but again couldn't get there—Jacob appeared in front of him with his arms crossed over his chest. Looking like a thirty-year-old wrestler. "Um," Edward said stiltedly. "Excuse me."

"You think you're going out there by yourself?" Jacob said archly, immovably.

"That would be the plan."

"Oh yeah? You think I'm going to let you go brood somewhere, you of all people, suicide-watch boy?"

Edward didn't appear to have an answer for this—in fact, he may have been the first time in my life when I'd seen him genuinely speechless. He stared up at Jacob with his mouth slightly agape—I had to admit, I was gaping a little myself. When had these two gone from I-challenge-you-to-a-duel to hug-it-out?

"Um," Edward said helplessly.

"Well, I'm not. Do you know how pissed Bella would be if I let you die?"

"Jacob, Bella is—"

"I _know _she's dead, I'm not stupid," Jacob said implacably. "But unlike you, I happen to believe in an afterlife, and I don't want to go into it hiding from the wrath of Bella Swan."

"Meaning—what?" Edward asked, struggling to get a handle on this.

"Meaning I'm coming with you."

Skepticism replaced confusion in an instant, Edward's eyebrows shooting up. "No offense, Jacob, but I'm thinking farthest corners of the Earth, and your leg is broken."

Jacob stomped experimentally with his foot, checking the progress on the freakish-fast werewolf healing. "Bone's already setting. I can run."

Edward flashed a grin, pieces of the way he used to be. "But can you keep up?" Exhaustion in the banter and the smile, but at least he was trying. It was a good sign.

"Bloodsucker, I could beat you running on one leg," Jacob replied easily.

"Tough talk. Let's see you prove it."

Jacob broke into a grin of his own, white carnivorous teeth flashing. "Race you to Brazil."

They turned again, Jacob crouching to shift and ruin yet another pair of jeans, but I said, "Edward." He looked at me, and I saw that some of the fear was gone. It was a good decision—a wise decision, even, and I was proud of him, but I'd miss him. "You've got ten years, kiddo, then I'm coming after you." He nodded shortly, understanding. Ten years was too long, but he needed it. "Jacob, you take care of him. Don't let him do anything stupid."

"Will do," Jacob grinned.

"And Jacob? Don't you do anything stupid either."

"That," Jacob said cheerfully. "I can't promise." He went from man to wolf with the startling ferocity of something that was always meant to be four-legged, tiger-eyed and bigger than he had been human. The grin stayed intact, a goofy lopsided smile. He switched his tail at Edward and they started to run.

"Well," I said briskly. "I guess that's that. We should be getting home."

"What?" Jasper reacted immediately, sounding a little stunned.

"I said, we should be getting home."

"But don't you think—I should leave too?" he asked, brittle-voiced.

"I absolutely do not think that," I said calmly. This was what I was here for. When Alice had asked me to come south, I had never thought they would need me physically. I had faith in my boys' ability to come to their senses. But mentally—emotionally—I had known I very well might find them in a thousand pieces and needing to be glued back together.

"Carlisle," Jasper said heavily—I could see Alice starting to hold his hand tighter, like she was afraid he might bolt. "It's like Edward said. You are better than this. The family you've made is better than me. I don't match."

"And why is that?"

"I'm not good." He said it with the tone of someone who believes it absolute truth, who has thought very hard and come to this conclusion. His eyes were dark honey red. "Look at me. I'm not good."

This was the danger of having children. In the span of a normal life, there were a certain amount of heartbreaks and devastations allotted to a person, a certain amount of times you had to feel completely gutted, destroyed. But when you had people that you loved—you just couldn't help but feel their heartbreaks too. "Oh, my son," I said. "Do you think it was meant to be easy? There is no good or bad. There's just normal."

"It's—different for me," Jasper said painfully, as if he spoke the words through ground glass. "It's harder."

"We can do hard things," I said simply.

Alice squeezed his hand, moving up alongside him. "You're not alone, stupid." This got a flicker of a smile from him, his happiness, as always, rooted in her. "So, what do you say we go home?"

He still looked torn—as always, the highest contrast out of all my children, the one with the most darkness, the most likely to slip up and the most likely to regret it. Black and white. "It might take awhile," he said.

"Sweetheart," Alice told him, "we've got forever."

She leapt out onto the roof and pulled him after her, the sun just spilling out over the long desert horizon, sending reds and yellows out from it like it meant to set the world on fire. We turned our faces from it and jumped off the roof, and we ran north.


End file.
